ROBERT  ERNEST  COWAN 


TOLD   AT  TUXEDO 


A.  M.   EMORY 


FROTH — It  is  an  open  room,  and  good  for  winter. 

CLO —      Why,  very  well,  then  ;   I  hope  here  be  truths. 

— Measure  for  Measure. 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

G,   P.   PUTNAM'S    SONS 

&j)t  ^nitherbothtr  |)resfi 

1887 


COPYRIGHT 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
1887 


Press  of 

O.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
New  York 


E57tr 


CONTENTS. 


PROLOGUE      .......         i 

CO 

CO 

^          I. — CARMELITA  CASTRO     .         .         .         .        10 

2«        II. — THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL          ...       43 

ca 

— •      III. — IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO    .       65 

^      IV. — A  POINT  OF  LAW        ....       96 
& 

V. — IN  SOLITUDE 113 

EPILOGUE 142 


276489 


TOLD    AT    TUXEDO. 


PROLOGUE. 

THERE  is  no  doubt  that  the  appearance  of  a 
blinding,  unappeasable  storm,  when  the  general 
temper  is  disposed  to  out-door  sports,  is  annoy- 
ing, especially  when  every  facility  for  enjoying 
these  sports  is  at  hand  in  alluring  readiness. 
But  storms,  like  fate,  like  death,  like  landlords, 
take  no  cognizance  of  individual  tastes  and  in- 
tentions, even  when  the  individuals  are  of  the 
importance  characterizing  the  gay  company  as- 
sembled in  the  very  prettiest  club-house  that 
ever  hid  itself  in  the  woods,  like  a  patrician 
beauty  coyly  deserting  the  brilliant  town  to 
draw  all  true  lovers  after  her  into  her  sylvan 
retreat. 

Yet  surely  the  unkindly  elements  without 
might  have  been  forgiven  for  the  imprisonment 
they  enforced  on  all  but  a  few  of  the  most  ad- 
venturous spirits,  for  who  but  these  singled 
favorites  of  fortune  could  have  found  this  luxu- 


2  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

rious  captivity  irksome  ?  Ah,  fellow  scribblers ! 
have  not  we,  nous  autres,  been  also  in  Arcadia 
and  learned  the  exquisite  pain  of  the  crumpled 
rose-leaf  ? 

The   long,  gay   evening  wore  away,  fainter 
grew  the 

"  Flashing  of  jewels  and  flutter  of  laces, 
Tropical  odors  sweeter  than  musk. 

The  curtain  of  silvery  azure  had  long  since 
hidden  the  bright  and  gallant  forms  that  had 
moved  through  the  spirited  scenes  of  the  gay 
little  comedy  on  the  stage  in  the  ball-room. 
The  wild  waltz  music,  sadder  in  its  sweetness 
than  any  song,  had  sobbed  itself  into  quiet. 
The  circling  chairs  were  no  longer  freighted 
with  the  stately  figures  of  lace-wrapped  dowa- 
gers, and  the  tripping  feet  no  longer  advanced 
and  retreated  on  the  shining  round  of  the  floor. 
One  attendant,  looking  like  a  gigantic  May-fly 
in  the  green  and  gold  livery  of  the  club,  flitted 
alone  across  the  deserted  expanse  of  the  splen- 
did, silent  room,  with  a  sheet  of  music  dropped 
by  a  departed  player,  and  only  the  echo  of  his 
footsteps  remained. 

Outside  on  the  piazza,  the  lanterns  burned 
low,  and  a  faint  mist  gathered  on  the  glass  that 
shut  out  the  white  winter  world.  The  festoons 
of  Christmas  green  trembled  no  longer  to  the 


PROLOGUE.  3 

tread  of  pacing  couples,  or  hung  above  young 
heads  in  suggestion  of  the  garland — God  send 
it  too  be  ever  green ! — that  might  one  day  bind 
young  lives  entangled  amid  the  routs  of  this 
pretty  play-house.  Glancing  through  the  inner 
windows  one  might  have  seen  fair  faces  looking 
back  with  parting  smiles  from  the  wide  stair- 
cases, while  soft  voices  gently  bade  a  last  good- 
night. These  too  soon  were  sounded  in  deeper 
tones,  and  out  of  all  the  brilliant  household  but 
six  watchers  remained  by  the  Yule-tide  blaze 
on  the  wide  hearth  in  the  great  hall. 

Merrily  the  fire-light  danced,  throwing  rosy 
reflections  on  the  polished  oaken  floor,  sending 
flickering  shafts  of  flame  to  play  hide-and-seek 
among  the  rafters  of  Georgia  pine,  as  though 
the  imprisoned  wood  spirits,  set  free  from  the 
burning  logs  on  the  brass  andirons,  flew  up  to 
search  in  condolence  for  sister  sprites  from 
Southern  forests,  bound  forever  into  the  tim- 
bered ceiling  to  look  down  on  the  passing 
pageant  below. 

The  silent  group  by  the  hearth  gazed  with 
concerted  pensiveness  into  the  deep  red  embers. 
No  silk-swathed  figure  of  gentle  maid  or  stately 
dame  broke  the  masculine  sobriety  of  attire. 
Now  and  then  from  "  lips  of  bearded  bloom  " 
fell  brief  references  to  triumphs  on  the  turf,  to 


4  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

dark  days  on  the  fearsome  street,  to  fair  women 
and  nights  of  revel  perhaps,  then  again  came 
silence. 

At  last  the  youngest  of  the  circle  rose  and 
walked  with  languid  impatience  through  the 
hall  to  the  outer  door.  He  came  back  with  a 
lounge  of  dismal  acquiescence,  and  turned  the 
periodicals  on  the  long  table  over  with  an  idle, 
petulant  hand. 

"  How  's  the  weather,  Harry?"  asked  a  hand- 
some man  of  forty,  with  the  more  generous  in- 
flection of  one  moved  to  contribute  something 
to  the  general  fund  of  conversation,  now  much 
reduced,  rather  than  the  tone  of  one  who  seeks 
for  information. 

"  Beastly  !  "  answered  Harry,  sadly.  After 
a  few  moments  passed  in  silent  reflection,  he 
added  :  "  And  it  's  going  to  be  worse  to-mor- 
row. There  's  not  the  first  chance  that  it  will 
let  up." 

"  It 's  a  confounded  shame,"  said  the  ques- 
tioner, relapsing  into  quietude  again.  A  slum- 
berous calm  descended  upon  the  group,  and 
though  no  one  moved  or  spoke  or  sighed  with 
gratification,  there  was  evident  relief  that  the 
brief  interruption  to  their  aimless  repose  was 
at  an  end. 

But  so,  speedily,  was  their  satisfaction.     Har- 


PROLOGUE.  5 

ry's  wrongs  rankled  in  his  young  soul.  It  was 
not  so  many  years  since  he,  watched  with  terror 
by  his  anxious  nurse,  had  flung  himself  head- 
long upon  a  painted  sled  and  departed  on  his 
mad  career  down  a  snow-covered  hill  on  the 
grounds  of  his  father's  country  place.  The 
chief  charm  of  that  rapturous  ride  had  not  been 
in  the  wild  exultation  with  which  he  felt 
"White  Ranger"  dart  away  on  the  true  little 
runners,  nor  yet  the  final  sweep,  sometimes 
ending  in  a  delicious,  delirious  tumble  into  a 
contiguous  snowbank,  but  in  the  blue  eyes  of  a 
neighboring  infant,  of  the  softer  sex,  who  stood 
by  in  the  care  of  her  less  harassed  attendant, 
and  clapped  her  tiny  hands  with  terrified  delight 
as  the  small  hero  flashed  by.  Harry  had 
secretly  plied  her  with  gum-drops  in  those 
early  days,  and  vainly  endeavored  to  persuade 
her  to  share  his  perilous  glory.  And  then  the 
years,  the  cruel,  dividing  years — not  many  of 
them,  though, — had  come  between  and  borne 
her  off  to  Europe  and  Harry  to  Harvard,  and 
— it  was  all  very  soft,  he  knew,  and  the  fellows 
would  never  believe  it  of  him,  but  he  had  seen 
no  one  since  in  the  gay  world  or  out  of  it  who 
had  kept  such  baby  roses  in  soft  cheeks,  or 
shaded  them  with  such  marvellous  long  lashes. 
And  now  she  was  at  Tuxedo,  a  little  braver, 


6  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

very  much  taller,  and  a  thousand  times  prettier. 
And  no  trunk  had  been  carried  into  the  club- 
house containing  such  a  fetching  toboggan  suit 
as  the  one  which  her  maid  had  proudly  exhib- 
ited to  his  sister's  maid.  And  who  but  Harry 
should  guide  the  glorified  toboggan  that  should 
bear  that  precious  freight  down  the  long  slide  ? 
But  her  throat  was  delicate— Harry  thought  a 
good  deal  about  that  delicate  throat  in  odd 
moments,— and  if  it  stormed  to-morrow  she 
would  not  be  permitted  to  venture  out  of 
doors.  Poor  Harry! 

He  looked  at  the  pictures  in  Life ;  he 
read  extracts  from  Vanity  Fair,  and  the 
Court  Journal, — pray  what  was  that  august 
publication  doing  among  the  wooded  hills  of 
New  York  ? — he  surreptitiously  tore  slips  from 
the  file  of  the  Scientific  American,  and  rolled 
them  into  admirable  lamp-lighters,  and  at  last 
broke  forth  again : 

"  Oh,  I  say  !  Did  any  of  you  ever  see  such 
an  infernal  night  as  this  ?  " 

No  one  seemed  to  regard  this  in  the  light  of 
a  question,  but  rather  as  a  piece  of  justifiably 
dramatic  rebellion  against  fate,  and  all  were 
rather  surprised  when  a  voice  said  in  a  very 
grave  and  quiet  tone,  "  Yes,  my  boy,  I  've  seen 
a  worse  night." 


PROLOGUE.  7 

There  was  a  general  turning  of  heads  in  the 
direction  of  the  speaker,  who  did  not  move  his 
own,  but  sat  gazing  at  the  smouldering,  wink- 
ing logs.  He  was  a  grave  man,  with  an  abun- 
dance of  fire  in  the  dark  eyes,  and  a  sturdiness 
in  the  quiet  figure,  that  showed  that  the  snow 
on  his  thick  hair  and  mustache  must  have  fallen 
fast  and  heavily  in  a  few  seasons.  He  was 
attired  with  the  elegant  nicety  that  characterized 
each  lounger  there,  and  the  hint  of  something 
bluff  and  weather-beaten  beneath  the  fastidi- 
ously correct  appearance  gave  him  an  odd  dis- 
tinction. Something  in  the  fine  melancholy  of 
his  tone  entered  into  the  mood  of  all  who  heard, 
changing  it  as  a  sudden  change  in  the  light  will 
alter  the  whole  aspect  of  a  landscape. 

"  When  was  that,  Mr.  Lenox?"  asked  Harry, 
with  respectful  earnestness. 

Mr.  Lenox  made  no  answer  for  a  little  while, 
and  his  thoughtful  eyes,  soft  with  revery,  dwelt 
on  the  dull  blaze  on  the  hearth.  The  others 
sat  waiting  in  mute  surprise,  until  at  last,  slowly, 
as  if  in  meditative  address  to  his  own  memory 
rather  than  to  the  listening  group,  he  spoke  : 

"  It  was  in  California,  four  and  twenty  years 
ago,  a  night  so  wild,  so  wet,  so  pierced  by  cruel 
winds — "  he  stopped  suddenly — "  I  don't  like 
to  remember  that  wind,"  he  said. 


8  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

"  I  should  hardly  have  thought  that  any 
storm  would  have  made  any  impression  on  you, 
much  less  have  lived  in  your  memory  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,"  said  one  listener,  with  a 
good-humored  glance  at  the  powerful  figure. 

"  You  do  not  suppose  I  am  cherishing  a  per- 
sonal resentment  against  that  one  of  all  the 
storms  I  have  weathered,"  said  Mr.  Lenox,  with 
a  half  smile.  But  the  smile  faded  quickly. 
"Ah,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  the  wind  that 
night  was  driving  the  rain  against  the  poor  ruin 
of  a  face  that  was  once  the  fairest  my  eyes  ever 
looked  on." 

Van  Corlear  was  one  of  the  group.  Now 
Van  lives  on  the  surface,  and  keeps  there  with 
determination,  but  he  has  sometimes  an  un- 
comfortable consciousness  of  depths  below  that 
are  waiting,  and  waiting  for  him  perhaps.  Some- 
thing in  the  words  suggested  those  hidden 
deeps,  and  made  him  uneasy. 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  with  airy  deference,  "  have 
you  a  love-story  for  us,  Mr.  Lenox?  We  all 
know  the  charm  in  those  based  on  personal  ex- 
perience." 

"  No,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Lenox,  briefly.  "  If  I  had 
ever  loved  that  face,  do  you  think  I  should  speak 
of  it  here  and  now?  And  the  story  I  have  to 
tell  is  not  a  love-story." 


PROLOGUE.  9 

"  Let  us  have  it,  by  all  means,  Mr.  Lenox," 
said  a  gentleman  with  a  figure  that  suggested 
the  silken  robe  of  justice  even  in  evening  dress. 
"  That  qualification  will  be  a  recommendation 
to  those  of  us  who  are  older  than  Van  Corlear 
and  Harry  here." 

So,  while  the  wind  whistled  and  the  snow 
beat  upon  the  panes  without,  he  told  them  the 
story  of  Carmelita  Castro. 


I. 

CARMELITA   CASTRO. 

IN  the  year  eighteen  fifty-four  the  social  and 
business  circles  of  San  Francisco  were  invaded 
by  a  tall,  blonde  Englishman,  by  name  Stanley 
Wade,  handsome,  fluent,  with  a  heartiness  of 
manner  that  atoned  for  his  superior  refinement 
and  the  real  elegance  and  grace  of  his  pretty 
wife,  as  fair  and  nearly  as  tall  as  he.  He 
brought  letters  of  introduction  from  prominent 
persons  in  London  and  New  York  to  the  lead- 
ing merchants  of  the  new  city,  which  stated 
him  to  be  eminently  competent  and  trustworthy, 
and  were  of  immediate  use  in  securing  for  him 
a  most  desirable  place  in  the  office  of  Robert 
Stirling.  You  all  know  about  Stirling,  the 
forty-niner.  The  strain  of  Scotch  shrewdness 
in  his  Yankee  blood  was  a  rare  thing  among 
Calif ornians,  and  his  success  was  largely  due  to 
that  touch  of  caution  in  his  enterprise.  Yet  for 
all  that  he  was  no  cool-headed,  canny  Scot,  but 
had  plenty  of  good  red  blood  in  his  veins,  and 
could  be  rash  enough  on  occasions,  He  had 

IQ 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  II 

the  true  American  lavish  instinct  besides.  He 
had  done  a  great  deal  for  San  Francisco ;  had 
built  great  blocks  of  shops  and  warehouses,  had 
laid  out  a  beautiful  park  at  the  south  end,  and 
at  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  was  much  occu- 
pied in  the  construction  of  an  enormous  building 
to  be  used  as  a  sugar  refinery.  He  had  long 
felt  the  need  of  some  one  to  fill  the  position  of 
confidential  secretary,  on  whose  convenient 
shoulders  he  could  lay  a  portion  of  his  cares, 
who  could  be  safely  trusted  to  act  for  him  in 
his  occasional  absences.  Well,  he  was  prone  to 
sudden  likings,  and  Wad?  elicited  one  of  the 
most  pronounced  of  these.  It  was  not  long 
before  he  gained  the  complete  confidence  of 
his  employer,  and  was  entrusted  with  nearly  all 
the  financial  portion  of  his  vast  undertakings. 

The  Wades  were  admitted  into  such  society  as 
the  city  afforded  at  that  time,  and  soon  made  a 
position  for  themselves  which  was  of  a  very  solid 
character.  They  were  regular  attendants,  as  be- 
coming good  church  people,  at  the  services  of  the 
Episcopal  Chapel,  were  teachers  in  the  Sunday- 
School,  and  associated  with  all  works  of  charity 
and  religion.  If  a  missionary  came  from  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific  to  tell  his  experiences 
and  solicit  subscriptions,  it  was  Wade  who  intro- 
duced him  to  those  whose  beneficent  instincts 


12  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

were  best  ascertained,  who  entertained  him  at 
his  house,  and  finally  bade  him  God-speed  on 
his  return  with  a  well-filled  purse.  If  a  fire 
devoured  the  little  all  of  any  poor  family,  or 
accident  disabled  the  head  of  it,  it  was  Wade 
who  started  the  subscription  for  their  relief,  and 
was  quick  with  personal  aid  and  benevolent 
sympathy.  His  wife,  a  fair,  gentle  creature, 
who  adored  him,  followed  in  his  wake  with  lov- 
ing assistance,  and  in  all  the  flourishing  town 
their  names  were  quoted  as  synonyms  for  char- 
ity, rectitude,  and  conjugal  devotion. 

They  were  at  the  height  of  the  top  wave  of 
popular  esteem  when  Robert  Stirling  suddenly 
decided  to  go  East.  Although  in  the  prime  of 
life  he  was  beginning  to  feel  the  strain  of  the 
intense  absorption  of  his  business  career  for  the 
past  few  years.  His  physicians  had  long 
warned  him  that  rest  and  change  of  scene  were 
urgently  required  if  he  hoped  to  have  the  health 
necessary  to  carry  out  the  hundred  schemes  in 
his  teeming  brain.  Like  most  eminently  suc- 
cessful men,  he  had  a  core  of  real  simplicity  in 
his  nature,  and  he  had  often  longed  in  the  most 
exciting  moments  of  his  astonishing  career  to 
visit  the  old  home  on  which  his  tired  eyes  had 
not  rested  for  twenty  years ;  and  this  pull  upon 
the  heartstrings  almost  more  than  the  constant 


CARMELITA  CASTRO.  13 

reminders  from  his  overworked  brain  made  him 
long  for  a  respite  from  the  toil  that  had  brought 
such  splendid  results.  But  he  could  never 
bring  himself  to  believe  that  he  could  be  spared 
from  his  place. 

"  If  the  boys  were  old  enough  to  act  for  me  !  " 
he  sighed  to  his  wife. 

But  he  began  to  be  reconciled  to  the  incon- 
venient youth  of  his  sons  after  Wade  had  been 
with  him  a  short  time,  and  his  decision  to  leave 
all  in  the  hands  of  this  acquired  treasure  was 
reached  with  surprising  rapidity.  Stirling  made 
arrangements  for  a  year's  absence,  for  he  meant 
to  rest,  as  he  had  worked,  thoroughly.  His 
wife  and  children  should  see  Europe  with  him, 
and  spend  some  weeks  in  the  Eastern  cities,  but 
the  greater  part  of  the  time  should  be  passed 
in  the  farmhouse,  where  his  own  little  lads 
could  be  shown  their  father's  haunts ;  should 
roam  the  fields,  and  follow  the  stream,  and 
climb  the  trees  in  the  old  orchard  where  the 
successful  merchant  had  once  wandered,  a 
dreaming  boy,  with  a  thousand  thoughts  and 
projects  under  the  curls  that  crept  through  his 
torn  straw  hat. 

Well,  I  think  that  year  paid  Stirling  pretty 
well  for  the  nights  he  had  lain  hard  and  the 
days  he  had  gone  hungry,  and  the  more  pros- 


14  TOLD   A  T  TUXEDO. 

perous  yet  more  painful  years  when  the  little 
wife  by  his  side  wore  gowns  turned  for  the 
third  time,  and  took  sole  charge  of  three  very 
active  babies.  He  had  no  anxieties  with  regard 
to  the  business,  for  each  mail  brought  most 
satisfactory  reports  from  Wade,  and  assurance 
that  he  might  prolong  his  absence  far  beyond 
the  original  limit  if  he  so  desired.  But  that  he 
did  not.  The  very  definiteness  of  the  number 
of  the  golden  hours  left  him  held  part  of  their 
charm,  which  would  have  been  spoiled  by  an 
arbitrary  extension,  and  on  the  very  day  set  for 
his  return  he  started  for  San  Francisco,  notifying 
Wade  of  his  intention. 

Two  days  before  the  steamer  was  due,  the 
city  was  thrown  into  a  fever  of  amaze  by  this 
item  appearing  in  the  evening  paper  : 

"  We  are  informed  on  good  authority  that 
Stanley  Wade,  secretary  and  agent  for  Rob- 
ert Stirling,  left  the  city  yesterday  by  the 
clipper  ship  Flying  Fish,  bound  for  China, 
deserting  his  wife  and  taking  with  him  a  noto- 
rious woman  of  the  town,  and  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars  belonging  to  his  employer." 

The  good-humored  tolerance  with  which  the 
Californian  of  those  days  received  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  moral  obliquities  of  his  neighbor 
has  no  place  here.  Wade  had  been  the  conven- 


CARMEL1TA    CASTRO.  15 

tional  shining  example,  model  man,  devoted 
husband,  Christian  gentleman.  Their  pride  in 
their  own  acuteness  was  humbled  by  this  dere- 
liction on  the  part  of  their  sample  citizen. 

There  were  many  speculations  as  to  the  way 
in  which  Stirling  was  likely  to  "  take  it,"  and 
all  curiosity  was  set  at  rest  on  the  day  after  his 
return  by  the  brief  announcement  in  the  papers 
that  he  offered  a  reward  of  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars for  the  arrest  of  Stanley  Wade,  with  or 
without  the  money. 

Local  enterprise  in  amateur  detective  work 
received  a  powerful  stimulus  by  this  step  on  the 
part  of  the  wronged  employer,  who  kept  his 
own  counsel  in  wrathful,  unrelenting  silence, 
but  the  chances  of  success  were  very  slight. 
There  seemed  no  doubt  that  Wade  was  on  the 
Flying  Fis/i,  already  two  days  out  at  sea,  and 
favored  by  the  northwest  winds,  which  had  a 
propulsive  power  almost  equal  to  steam.  There 
were  no  steamers  to  spare  for  the  pursuit,  even 
had  the  chances  been  equal.  The  regular  police, 
counting  some  of  the  ablest  and  sharpest  of 
the  class,  were  terribly  chagrined,  despite  some 
inevitable  professional  admiration  of  the  sur- 
prising shrewdness  which  had  outwitted  them 
with  the  rest  of  the  community.  They  had 
little  hope  of  circumventing  this  surprising 


1 6  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

adroitness,  but  went  through  the  usual  meth- 
ods, much  interviewing  included.  Their  sedu- 
lous attention  to  this  branch  of  professional 
duty  resulted  in  columns  of  reported  opinion 
in  the  papers ;  one  which  caused  special  com- 
ment being  a  very  indefinite  interview  between 
Detective  Grant  and  a  woman  discreditably 
known  to  local  fame  as  Carmelita  Castro.  I 
need  not  remind  you  that  ladies  of  her  ante- 
cedents found  California  so  congenial  in  those 
days  that  one  had  need  to  be  very  exceptional 
to  attain  even  this  reputation.  But  one  look 
at  that  woman  explained  any  interest  excited 
by  her. 

I  think  I  have  never  seen  so  beautiful  a  crea- 
ture. Her  great  rings  of  copper-colored  hair 
shaded  the  blackest  arched  eyebrows  over  big, 
sleepy,  brown  eyes.  Her  superb  figure  was 
always  held  aloft  with  a  certain  easy  defiance, 
and  the  fixed  roses  in  her  creamy  cheeks  faded 
or  deepened  for  no  man.  Mrs.  Wade  had  often 
passed  that  reckless  magnificent  shape  in  the 
streets,  and  shrunk  with  timid  haughtiness  from 
the  cool,  good-humored  glance  of  the  splendid 
eyes.  Of  late,  had  the  virtuous  but  delicate 
lady  but  known  it,  there  had  been  a  gleam  of 
comprehending  pity  in  their  bold  regard. 

As  in  the  time  of  flood,  animals,  bitterly  an- 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  I/ 

tagonized  by  nature,  may  be  seen  clinging  to- 
gether in  the  close  companionship  of  a  common 
terror  on  a  single  rock,  so  in  certain  simple,  ter- 
rible moments,  the  strong  primitive  emotions 
assert  themselves  at  the  expense  of  social  dis- 
cernment, moral  difference,  natural  repulsion 
even,  and  men  and  women  forget  all  but  a 
common  humanity. 

The  deserted,  bewildered  wife,  reading  with 
bright,  fevered  eyes  each  item  in  the  paper  that 
teemed  with  references  to  her  husband,  fastened 
her  gaze  on  the  report  of  that  interview  with 
sudden  conviction.  What  was  Carmelita  Cas- 
tro to  her  now  ?  Only  a  person  through  whom 
tidings  of  her  missing  husband  might  come. 
It  was  not  long  before  her  shrinking  figure  was 
stealing  along  the  streets,  in  the  late  twilight, 
to  the  door  of  a  house  where  the  very  knocker 
seemed  to  shudder  away  from  her  spotless 
hand. 

How  she  asked  for  the  woman,  how  she  was 
answered,  Mrs.  Wade  never  knew.  It  seemed 
as  if  hours  had  gone  by  before  she  was  ushered 
into  a  room  where  sat  the  one  she  sought. 
Carmelita  was  bending  over  a  desk,  pen  in  hand, 
her  loose  white  wrapper  falling  away  from  her 
beautiful  throat,  against  which  lay  the  heavy 
hair  in  dense,  waving  masses.  She  turned  care- 


1 8  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

lessly  as  her  visitor  entered.  Mrs.  Wade  unfast- 
ened her  veil  with  trembling  fingers.  The 
indolent,  bold  curiosity  in  the  dark  eyes 
changed  suddenly. 

"  What  brings  you  here  ?  "  asked  Carmelita, 
abruptly. 

The  shaking  hands  held  out  with  a  piteous, 
mutely  imploring  gesture,  a  paper,  one  white 
finger  pointing  to  the  printed  interview  between 
Grant  and  Carmelita  Castro. 

"  Well  ?  "  demanded  the  latter. 

"  Oh,  you  can  help  me,  I  know  you  can ! 
There  was  nothing  in  these  words  to  make  me 
feel  this,  and  yet  I  do.  Oh,  have  pity  on  me  ! 
We  love  our  husbands,  we  Englishwomen." 

"  I  am  an  Englishwoman,"  said  Carmelita, 
slowly,  "  and  I  had  a  husband  once ;  a  Mexi- 
can. He  was  a  devil." 

"  Mine  is  not !  "  cried  the  other  woman,  pas- 
sionately. "  Wicked  ?  Yes,  he  has  been  wicked, 
but  once,  only  this  once.  We  have  lived  to- 
gether for  eleven  years,  and  he  has  never  given 
me  one  hard  word.  He  has  never  until  now 
wronged  one  human  being  of  a  penny,  or  de- 
ceived man,  woman,  or  child  who  trusted  him. 
This  is  a  delirium.  He  will  wake  and  then  he 
will  want  me.  He  will  want  me,"  she  repeated 
piteously. 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  19 

"  Do  you  think  he  is  with  me  ?  "  asked  Car- 
melita. 

The  wife  looked  steadily  in  the  wonderful 
face. 

"  No  !  "  she  said,  after  a  short,  strong  scrutiny. 

"  They  say  he  is  on  his  way  to  China." 

"  Not  yet.  He  is  not  gone  so  far  out  of  my 
reach." 

"  He  has  left  you  some  clue,  then  ?  " 

With  what  a  wail  came  the  answer. 

"  Not  one  word  !  " 

Carmelita  was  a  shrewd  woman.  She  be- 
lieved her  implicitly. 

"Why  do  you  believe  I  can  help  you?"  she 
asked. 

"  I  have  told  you  that  I  do  not  know." 

Carmelita  threw  herself  back  in  her  chair 
again.  Then  she  folded  her  beautiful  arms  on 
the  desk  and  rested  her  chin  on  them,  looking 
up  with  keen  eyes  at  the  pallid  face  that 
watched  her. 

"Mrs.  Stanley  Wade,"  she  said,  "if  I  had 
come  to  your  house  in  South  Park  and  told  you 
that  I  sought  your  aid  in  recovering  a  lost  lover, 
what  would  you  have  done,  a  month  ago  ?  " 

The  honest  Saxon  color  burned  up  into  the 
wan  countenance. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mrs.  Wade,  steadily,  "that 


20 


TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 


I  should  have  ordered  my  servants  to  turn  you 
away  from  my  door." 

Carmelita  nodded  approvingly. 

"  You  speak  the  truth,"  she  said,  "  so  do  I. 
We  have  that  much  in  common  ;  nothing  else, 
except  our  English  birth.  You  don't  mind  my 
claiming  it  ?" 

"No." 

"  Perhaps- 1  might  go  farther,  and  say  we  Ve 
both  been  ill-treated." 

She  saw  an  angry  light  invade  Mrs.  Wade's 
mild  eyes,  and  stopped. 

"  You  've  come  to  me  fairly  enough,"  she 
said,  after  a  pause,  "  and  I  '11  answer  you  fairly. 
I  don't  know  where  your  husband  is." 

The  look  of  bitter  disappointment  with  which 
her  words  were  met  was  quickly  chased  away 
by  one  of  persistent  hope. 

"  But  you  could  find  out ! " 

Carmelita  was  silent. 

"You  have  suspicions,"  urged  the  wronged 
wife,  her  face  imploring  like  that  of  a  suffering 
child. 

"  Yes,"  said  Carmelita,  curiously  shaken. 

Mrs.  Wade  came  close  to  the  white  figure 
and  caught  one  of  the  large,  dimpled  hands  in 
her  own  slight  ones  with  a  gesture  of  passionate 
entreaty. 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  21 

"  Oh,  listen  to  me  !  I  do  not  know  what  your 
life  has  been.  It  must  have  been  cruel,  or  you 
would  not  be  here.  But  once  you  were  a  girl, 
as  I  was  when  Stanley  Wade  came  to  me.  You 
heard,  as  I  did,  words  of  love,  and  you  believed 
them.  You  believed  them  so  surely,"  she 
repeated,  watching  closely  the  face  of  that 
other  woman,  "  that  when  you  found  they  came 
from  a  false  and  cruel  heart  there  was  nothing 
in  the  world  for  you  but — this !  I  went  to  my 
mother  in  that  early  time,  and  told  her  what 
he  had  said  to  me.  Was  there  no  one  to  whom 
you  told  your  love-story?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Carmelita,  in  a  low  voice,  "  there 
was  a  saint  on  earth  then  whose  name  you  must 
not  mention  here." 

"  Then  there  is  an  angel  in  heaven  now.  She 
would  be  sorry  for  us  if  she  knew,  two  poor 
girls  remembering  their  happier  time — 

"  Stop !  "  said  Carmelita,  imperatively.  "  This 
is  no  place  for  such  words,  no  place  for  you. 
Go  home.  If  I  can  help  you  I  will.  Let  that 
comfort  you.  I  told  you  I  speak  the  truth." 

When  Mrs.  Wade  wearily  stepped  within  the 
door  of  her  lonely  house,  Carmelita  Castro  was 
already  dashing  far  beyond  the  outskirts  of  the 
city  on  a  horse  that  she  knew  and  loved.  On 
and  on  she  rode  through  the  night,  her  pis- 


22  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

tols  at  her  belt,  her  luminous  eyes  narrowed 
to  the  veriest  gleam  of  brown  as  she  peered  into 
the  darkness,  her  full  voice  never  ceasing  in  its 
encouragement  to  the  trusty  friend  who  carried 
her  with  fleet  safety.  The  dawn  was  beginning 
to  redden  the  eastern  sky  when  at  last  she  drew 
rein  before  a  long,  low  house  that  was  little  more 
than  a  fantastic  ruin.  She  had  long  since  aban- 
doned the  highway,  and  the  road  which  brought 
her  to  this  hidden  door  was  scarcely  more  than 
a  just  perceptible  bridle-path.  Slipping  from 
her  saddle,  Carmelita  struck  the  handle  of  her 
whip  sharply  against  the  casement  of  one  of 
the  low  windows.  All  was  silent,  and  she  re- 
peated the  blow  with  such  energy  that  the  weary, 
sagacious  horse  started  at  the  noise  of  it.  This 
time  there  was  a  stir  within,  and  Carmelita  lis- 
tened with  alert  attention,  not  devoid  of  a  cer- 
tain grim  amusement,  to  the  muffled  sounds  of 
hurry  and  agitation.  They  lasted  longer  than 
she  liked,  but  as  her  impatience  approached  a 
climax,  a  violent  fit  of  coughing  came  to  shake 
her  into  an  exhaustion  that  gave  the  effect  of 
placid  waiting,  for,  as  the  door  was  cautiously 
approached  from  within,  she  called  out  gently : 

"  Well,  Kate  !  " 

"  Carmelita ! " 

"  Just  so." 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  2$ 

The  unseen  Kate  swore  a  little,  then,  with 
nervous,  hurrying  ringers,  opened  the  door  far 
enough  for  Carmelita  to  enter,  closing  it  sharply 
upon  her,  almost  before  the  last  fold  of  her 
gown  had  fluttered  in.  A  fire  still  smouldered 
and  winked  on  the  hearth  of  the  large,  low  room 
they  entered,  sending  out  light  enough  to  show 
that  Kate  was  a  very  handsome  Kate  indeed, 
gorgeous  as  a  tropical  flower  in  her  heavy,  rich, 
dark  beauty,  coarse  too,  as  its  leaves. 

In  the  name  of  a  most  ineligible  locality,  this 
lady  demanded  of  her  untimely  guest  the  cause 
of  this  late — or  early  call.  She  was  apparently 
at  once  apprehensive  and  relieved,  despite  the 
sleepy  swagger  of  her  manner,  and  withal,  not 
unkindly  disposed  toward  the  intruder. 

"Where  is  your  brother?"  asked  Carmelita, 
abruptly. 

The  crimson  in  Kate's  cheeks  flamed  into 
scarlet  as  she  answered  with  a  cool  laugh : 

"  You  aint  come  after  him,  I  suppose ;  I  never 
thought  you  was  sweet  on  each  other." 

"  I  am  come  after  him,"  said  Carmelita,  dog- 
gedly. "You  'd  better  call  him." 

"  S'posin'  he  aint  home  ?  " 

"  Who  were  you  talking  with  after  my  knock 
wakened  you  ?  "  demanded  Carmelita. 

"  We  do  entertain  a  friend  occasional,"  said 


24  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

Kate,  pushing  her  bare  foot  furtively  at  an 
escaped  brand,  still  dully  warm  from  the  burn- 
ing. 

"  I  want  to  see  your  brother,"  insisted  Car- 
melita.  "  You  have  n't  a  houseful  to-night." 

"  Better  wait  until  morning." 

"  I  have  n  't  time." 

"  Well,  whatever  you  want  of  Dick,  you  Ve 
come  at  a  bad  time.  He  came  home  from 
Zuchiro  two  hours  ago,  and  was  pretty  full. 
I  don't  care  about  wakin'  him  when  he  's  like 
that." 

"  Then  I  will,"  said  Carmelita,  moving  tow- 
ard a  door  in  the  corner. 

Kate's  quick  motion  toward  that  door  was  as 
quickly  arrested,  but  Carmelita  caught  it. 

"  Come,  Kate,"  she  said,  quietly.  "  You 
know  and  I  know  that  Stanley  Wade  is  in 
there.  I  Ve  got  to  see  him." 

"  Stanley  Wade  !  He  's  on  his  way  to  China. 
Dick  is  here,"  said  Kate,  boldly. 

"  Let  me  see  him,"  said  Carmelita,  for  an- 
swer. 

Kate  hesitated  for  a  moment,  then,  going 
forward,  flung  open  the  door. 

"  Look  for  yourself,  you  loon,"  she  said. 
"  He  's  gone  to  sleep  again,  I  suppose." 

Carmelita  looked   at   the   recumbent  figure 

o 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  2$ 

nearly  hidden  by  the  bedclothes.  Only  the 
outline  of  an  olive  cheek  and  a  mass  of  dark 
hair  could  be  seen.  She  gazed  steadily  for  a 
few  moments,  then  advanced  into  the  room. 

"  There  's  no  use  playing  possum,"  she  said, 
going  up  to  the  side  of  the  couch.  "  I  've 
something  to  tell  you,  Mr.  Wade."  Still  there 
was  no  movement,  and  Carmelita  coolly  drew 
from  her  belt  one  of  the  little  silver-mounted 
pistols.  She  cocked  it  with  a  resonant,  busi- 
ness-like click. 

"  Now,  Wade,"  she  said,  "  I  '11  call  in  this 
persuader.  If  you  don  't  speak,  I  '11  wing  you. 
I  Ve  come  as  your  friend,  but  not  as  your  friend 
alone,  and  this  is  a  pretty  desperate  matter." 

At  the  sound  of  that  click  the  eyes  of  the 
man  started  open.  They  closed  instantly,  but 
Carmelita  caught  the  gleam  of  bright  blue 
that  flashed  out  oddly  enough  from  the  tawny 
setting  of  his  dark  face. 

"  I  thought  so,"  she  said,  composedly, 
"  though  I  was  n  't  sure  until  now.  You 
need  n  't  speak.  I  've  something  to  tell  you. 
Go  away,  Kate." 

Kate  stood  within  the  door,  and  now  burst 
into  an  oration  quite  distinguished  by  its 
strained,  jocose  profanity.  Carmelita  paid  no 
attention  to  her. 


26  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  walnut  juice  and 
Tarol's  dye  work  better,"  she  said,  still  address- 
ing the  man.  "  You  always  had  Dick  Drener's 
features,  and  you  Ve  matched  his  colors  so  well, 
except  in  the  eyes,  that  your  own  mother 
would  n  't  know  the  difference — when  you  're 
asleep — unless  she  knew  what  I  know." 

The  man  sat  up  in  bed,  the  sheets  falling 
away  and  showing  him  to  be  fully  dressed. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "what  is  it?  You  are  a 
clever  woman,  Carmelita  Castro." 

"  Not  so  clever,"  said  Carmelita,  carelessly. 
"  Any  one  who  knew  you  and  Kate  as  I  Ve 
known  you  these  six  months,  would  n't  be 
fooled  into  thinking  you  'd  left  her  on  this  side 
of  the  water  and  gone  off  with  Meg  Merino.  I 
suspected  from  the  first  that  you  had  n't  left 
the  country,  because  I  knew  where  Kate  was. 
Why  did  n't  you  ?  " 

"  There  were  arrangements ,"  muttered 

Wade. 

"  About  the  money  you  stole  ?  I  suppose  so. 
Dick  Drener  has  part  of  it  with  him,  and  you 
and  Kate  mean  to  take  off  the  rest  of  it  and 
yourselves  when  it  comes  handy  and  the  coast 
is  clear. 

"  See  here,  Carmelita,"  interposed  Kate,  who 
had  passed  from  amaze,  alarm,  and  rage  into  de- 


CARMELITA  CASTRO.  27 

fiance,  "  what  the is  it  all  to  you  any  way. 

If  you  're  after  some  of  the  cash,  say  so.  It  aint 
like  you  to  spring  a  thing  on  us  in  this  way." 

"  You  leave  the  room  "  said  Carmelita ;  "  it 
will  be  better  for  you.  Going  to  be  ugly  about 
it,  are  you  ?  I  would  n't.  Do  you  remember 
the  time  when  you  were  down  with  small-pox, 
and  not  a  soul  in  the  camp  would  come  near 
you  but  one  woman,  and  how  she  risked  her  life 
to  save  yours,  and  what  you  value  more,  your 
skin,  for  you  ?  You  made  a  big  promise  then, 
Kate  ;  keep  it  now,  and  give  me  half  an  hour 
with  this  man." 

The  girl  turned  sullenly  away.  "Are  you  going 
to  get  us  into  trouble  ? "  she  asked,  with  a 
lowering  brow. 

"  No,  I  'm  going  to  get  you  out  of  it,  and 
more  besides.  Go,  there  's  no  time  to  lose." 

Slowly,  and  with  many  a  muttered,  protesting 
oath,  Kate  passed  into  the  outer  room  ;  Car- 
melita promptly  closed  the  door  upon  her,  and 
looked  Wade  in  the  face. 

"  You  're  a  fine  specimen  of  a  fool,"  she  said, 
with  a  touch  of  indulgent  cynicism. 

"  Was  that  what  you  came  to  say  ?  " 

"  Do  you  think  she  's  worth  it  ?  "  asked  Car- 
melita, indicating  the  banished  Kate,  and  igno- 
ring the  question. 


28 

"  She  's  the  handsomest  thing  alive,"  said  the 
man,  doggedly. 

Carmelita  waved  her  left  hand  at  him  with  a 
gesture  of  immense,  resigned  contempt. 

"  Oh,  but  you  're  a  hopeless  lot !  "  she  said. 
"  Kate  can't  hold  a  candle  tome,  if  that 's  what 

took  you,  nor  even but  some  things  can't 

be  spoken  of  together.  Stanley  Wade,"  and  she 
went  to  his  side,  speaking  in  a  clear,  rapid  whis- 
per :  "  do  you  know  that  there  's  a  reward  of 
fifty  thousand  dollars  offered  for  you,  with  or 
without  the  loot  ?  " 

Wade  was  white  to  the  very  lips.  For  one 
moment  there  was  a  murderous  gleam  in  his 
eye  as  it  rested  on  the  woman's  figure,  only  a 
woman's,  for  all  its  splendid  vigor.  It  was  a 
lonely  place,  and  Kate  was  devoted  to  him. 

Carmelita  caught  the  cruel,  fleeting  sugges- 
tion. 

"  Ah,  it  won't  be  worth  your  while  to  add 
murder  to  the  list  of  your  new  accomplish- 
ments," she  said,  with  a  light  laugh.  "  I  'm  not 
after  the  reward,  my  fine  gentleman." 

"  What  then  ?  "  demanded  the  man,  staring. 

"  Sit  down  and  I  '11  tell  you,"  said  Car- 
melita. 

It  was  soon  told.  Wade  sat  quite  still,  with 
his  head  bowed  on  his  hands.  Carmelita  made 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  29 

no  comment  on  her  simple  narrative.  "  Now 
I  '11  fix  Kate,"  she  concluded. 

"  Wait !  "  said  Wade,  hoarsely.  "  I  don't 
know 1 — 

She  flashed  around  on  him  a  look  before 
which  he  cowered. 

"  You  !  "  she  cried,  in  a  tone  that  smote  the 
air  as  if  it  had  been  thunder  evoked  by  the 
lightning  of  that  blinding  glance.  "  By  the  Lord, 
I  think  I  could  serve  that  sweet  woman  best  by 
giving  you  up  !  " 

Again  came  that  evil  look  into  the  man's  face. 

"  Better  not,"  said  Carmelita.  "  I  thought  I 
might  have  some  little  difficulty  with  you,  and 
I  left  a  letter  for  the  Madam.  The  fifty  thou- 
sand would  n't  come  amiss  to  her,  and  she  '11 
read  that  letter,  if  I  'm  not  there  by  the  time  I 
set." 

Wade  rose.     "  Do  you  think — 

"  I  think  you  are  going  to  accept  my  plan. 
I  don't  pretend  to  say  you  are  worth  saving, 
but  she  thinks  you  are,  and  I  suppose  things 
the  world  over  are  nothing  but  what  people 
think  they  are."  With  this  hint  at  the  deepest 
secret  of  an  advanced  philosophy,  Carmelita 
turned  away. 

"  Shall  you  tell  Kate  about  the  reward  ? " 
whispered  Wade. 


30  TOLD   A  T  TUXEDO. 

She  gave  him  one  glance  of  good-humored 
scorn.  "  Tell  her !  "  she  said  ;  "  What  do  you 
take  me  for  ?  Do  you  think  she  loves  you  fifty 
thousand  dollars  worth?  No,  Stanley  Wade. 
There  's  only  one  woman  in  the  world  fool — 
or  angel — enough  to  do  that." 

Three  days  after,  a  man,  in  obedience  to  a 
surly  word  of  command  from  the  captain  of  the 
clipper  ship  Astra,  permitted  himself  to  be 
aided  first  by  that  official,  whose  manner 
throughout  was  one  of  protesting  compliance, 
up  the  side  of  that  noble  vessel. 

Two  women  stood  below  in  a  little  boat  that 
danced  and  rocked  restlessly  on  the  uneasy 
waves.  Both  were  silent,  and  one  held  against 
her  heart  the  hands  of  the  other. 

"  Mary !  "  called  a  voice  from  above,  and  both 
started. 

"  That  is  your  name,"  said  the  larger,  taller, 
woman.  "  It  was  mine  once  too,  the  English 
name  my  mother  gave  me.  Will  you  think  of 
me  sometimes  as  Mary?" 

The  stainless  lips  were  pressed  against  the 
full,  crimson  mouth  that  quivered  at  their 
touch.  "  I  will  pray  for  you  always  as  Mary," 
was  the  answer. 

"  Mary !  "  came  the  call  again,  and,  with  a 
last  look  of  love  and  gratitude,  Mary  Wade 
turned  away. 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  31 

Far  out  at  sea  that  night  a  man  and  a  woman 
paced  the  narrow  deck  of  the  flying  ship. 

"And  she  pleaded  with  him,  this  captain,  who 
loved  her  once,  loves  her  now,  I  think,"  said 
the  fair-haired,  gentle  Mary.  "  And  she  has 
done  all  this  for  me,  a  stranger,  because  I  asked 
her.  Is  it  not  wonderful?" 

And  the  man  answered  with  hanging  head, 
"  Nothing  is  wonderful  when  you  can  forgive." 

Seven  years  were  not  long  in  passing  to  those 
who  felt  each  moment  a  retrieval.  The  wife  of 
Stanley  Wade  had  spoken  with  the  divine  dis- 
cernment of  love.  That  dark  episode  in  his 
life  had  been  a  delirium,  a  fever,  a  soon  tamed 
riot  of  hitherto  well-disciplined  senses.  No  one 
sudden  crime  can  corrupt  a  whole  soul.  As 
violent  as  had  been  his  sin,  was  his  repentance. 
Eighty  thousand  dollars  of  Stirling's  money 
had  been  restored  to  him  as  soon  as  it  could  be 
safely  placed  in  his  hands.  To  extort  a  portion 
of  Dick  Drener's  claimed  share  of  the  spoil  was 
hard,  but  it  was  done.  From  this  Wade 
reserved  a  few  thousands  due  him  for  his  ser- 
vices. The  rest  had  gone  in  speculation. 

An  old  friend  to  whom  he  went  in  Hong 
Kong  with  the  sorrowful  tale  of  his  aberration, 
received  him,  with  many  restrictions  and  stipu- 
lations, into  his  counting-house.  There  he 


32  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

slaved,  early  and  late,  night  and  day,  to  save 
from  his  salary  until  the  sum  still  due  his 
wronged  employer  should  be  complete.  This 
would  have  taken  a  lifetime  and  more,  had 
not  the  money  reserved  on  his  old  account 
been  invested — a  little  against  Mrs.  Wade's 
cautious  instinct,  it  must  be  owned — in  a  spec- 
ulation that  brought  riches  with  a  rapidity  that 
seemed  miraculous.  When  seven  years  were 
gone  Wade  had  paid  Robert  Stirling  every  far- 
thing of  which  he  had  robbed  him,  and  was  in 
a  fair  way  to  make  a  decent  competence  for 
himself.  Then  said  Mary  Wade  to  her  hus- 
band, looking  into  the  blue  eyes  of  the  woman- 
child  born  to  them  in  their  exile  :  "  We  must 
go  back,  now,  for  Carmelita.  My  letters  are 
of  no  avail.  We  will  take  the  child  and  show 
her  to  her,  and  tell  her  she  bears  her  name,  and 
she  will  not  refuse  longer  to  come  to  us." 

It  was  on  a  night  in  January  that  I,  long 
absent  from  California,  was  asking  myself  why 
I  had  never  remembered  with  sufficient  vindic- 
tiveness  the  amenities  of  its  climate.  I  fought 

o 

my  way  along  the  deserted  streets  in  the  teeth 
of  the  gale,  my  face  stung  by  the  bitter  rain 
that  drove  against  it  like  an  army  of  red-hot 
needles,  my  hands  muffled  in  my  cloak,  and 
my  feet  protecte'd  by  heavy  boots,  clogged  with 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  33 

dampness,  my  every  fibre  a  protest  againt  the 
outrageous  behavior  of  the  elements.  As  I 
turned  a  corner  with  a  desperate,  concentrated 
resistance  to  the  wind  that  tore  savagely  around 
it,  a  slight  figure  fluttered  against  me,  like  a 
leaf  blown  upon  my  breast  by  the  cruel  gale, 
and  fell  prone  at  my  feet.  I  picked  it  up,  sup- 
porting it  as  well  as  I  could,  until  breath  and 
the  power  to  speak  should  come.  But  after  a 
moment's  struggle,  a  wild  fit  of  coughing 
racked  and  shook  the  gaunt  frame  into  insen- 
sibility, and  I  saw  that  there  was  nothing  for 
me  to  do  but  carry  it  to  the  nearest  shelter.  I 
thought  it  would  be  difficult,  but  as  I  raised 
the  sick  creature  in  my  arms  I  found  it  so  light 
a  burden  that  it  would  have  been  no  task  to 
have  borne  it  on  with  me  for  a  mile.  It  was 
but  a  short  distance  that  I  had  to  go  before 
the  shelter  appeared  in  the  form  of  a  saloon, 
sending  out  a  warm  red  light  into  the  winter 
night.  As  we  approached  the  door  I  lifted  my 
hand  and  put  away  from  the  poor  face  the 
torn,  weedy  draperies  that  had  fallen  over  it. 
The  rain  had  beaten  hard  upon  it,  and  the  long 
straying  locks  were  wet  and  dripping.  The 
glow  from  the  saloon  windows  fell  strong  upon 
it,  and  then,  for  all  its  pinched  outlines,  its 
fallen  contours,  for  all  the  cruel  scar  across  it, 


34  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

showing  clear  in  that  rosy  light,  then,  gentle- 
men, I  knew  her. 

I  got  her  into  the  place  and  an  inner  room, 
and  the  wife  of  the  proprietor  helped  me  to 
bring  back  the  ebbing  life  to  the  wrecked  frame. 
At  last  the  lovely  dark  eyes — lovely  still,  sole 
vestige  of  that  ruined  beauty — looked  at  me 
with  intelligence  and  recognition. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  it  is  you,  John  Lenox." 

"  I  can  hardly  dare  say  it  is  you,  Carmelita 
Castro,"  I  answered,  sadly.  "  Why  do  I  find 
you  like  this  ?  " 

She  gave  the  ghost  of  a  smile.  "  It 's  not 
like  our  last  meeting,  is  it  ?  " 

I  remembered  the  night  when  I  had  last  seen 
her  in  the  full  plentitude  of  her  beauty  and 
power,  and  could  only  turn  my  face  away. 

"  It  was  at  that  dinner  at  the  Alcazar  restau- 
rant, where  Ricardo  Mores  brought  you,"  she 
said,  meditatively.  "  What  a  shy  fellow  you 
were,  and  how  you  hated  meeting  me,  though 
you  had  told  Ricardo  over  and  over  again  that 
you  longed  to  be  a  painter  just  to  make  my 
face  live  forever  on  canvas.  You  would  n  't 
care  to  do  that  now,  would  you  ?"  she  asked, 
with  that  same  unearthly  smile.  "  Do  you  re- 
member," she  went  on,  "  that  it  was  just  after 
the  Wade  affair  had  set  the  city  mad,  and  that 


CARMF.LITA    CASTRO.  35 

you  and  every  one  suspected  me  of  knowing 
more  about  it  than  anybody  else,  and  how 
you  and  Howard  urged  me  to  tell  you  some- 
thing about  it,  and  tried  to  trap  me  when  you 
failed?" 

"  Yes,"  I  said.  She  had  grown  deadly  white 
as  she  spoke,  and  I  made  her  drink  some 
brandy. 

"  Kind,  always  kind,"  she  said.  "  There  were 
some  words  spoken  that  night,  John  Lenox, 
which  even  I  should  not  have  heard  from  the 
lips  of  men.  Do  you  remember  how  you 
turned  on  Howard  and  told  him  that  a  man 
who  forgot  the  sex  of  any  woman  was  unwor- 
thy of  his  own  ?  There  was  danger  of  a  fight 
for  a  while,  but  he  was  always  very  fond  of  you 
afterward." 

"  Yes,"  I  said  again.  "  He  's  underground 
now,  poor  Howard." 

"  And  I  above  it !  "  she  said,  in  a  tone  that 
seemed  to  reproach  the  dead  man  for  that  sad 
advantage.  "  But  not  for  long." 

"  Tell  me,"  I  entreated,  "  why  you  are  abroad 
on  this  fearful  night." 

Something  of  the  old  careless  shrug  was  in 
the  lifting  of  her  wasted  shoulders. 

"  Hobson's  choice,"  she  said. 

"  I  Ve  been  turned  out  of  my  lodgings.   I  Ve 


36  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

owed  rent  for  months,  and  I  have  n't  a  cent  in 
the  world." 

"  What  fiend  could  have  turned  you  out  on 
such  a  night." 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  the  woman  is  no  fiend. 
She  did  well  in  letting  me  into  her  house  at  all ; 
and  she  has  been  out  of  her  money  for  a  long 
time." 

"  Let  me  take  you  where  you  can  be  made 
comfortable,"  I  said,  eagerly. 

"What  's  the  use?" 

"  Use !  "  I  echoed.  "  Is  there  no  use  in 
preserving  your  life  ?  " 

"  Not  the  slightest,  and  you  could  n't  do  it  if 
there  was,  my  friend.  It  won't  pay  to  prolong 
it." 

"  Let  me  be  the  judge,"  I  said,  gently. 

She  turned  away  irritably.  "  Oh,  I  wish  I 
had  not  met  you  !  The  storm  would  have 
been  a  better  friend,  though  you  mean  well.  I 
should  have  been  as  comfortable  as  Howard  is 
if  I  had  stayed  out  all  night." 

But  I  persisted  and  urged,  and  the  poor 
thing,  weakened  by  long  sickness,  yielded  easily 
enough,  only  declaring  that  if  I  were  willing  to 
help  her,  she  would  go  back  to  the  lodgings 
from  which  she  had  been  ejected.  "  It  's  all 
the  home  I  've  had  for  so  long,"  she  said. 


CARMELITA    CASTRO.  37 

The  woman  who  kept  the  place  was  suffi- 
ciently civil  when  I  came,  bringing  Carme- 
lita,  and  stating  that  henceforth  I  would  be 
responsible  for  her. 

Well,  with  the  best  medical  care,  and  all 
that  money  could  do  to  make  her  comfortable, 
she  seemed  to  rally.  One  day  when  I  visited 
her  sick-room,  she  looked  at  me  with  some- 
thing of  the  old,  gay,  delicious  smile. 

"You  're  not  a  newspaper  man  any  more?" 
she  said. 

"  No,"  I  answered. 

"  Then  I  '11  tell  you  what  you  were  so  wild  to 
know  seven  years  ago.  I  can't  do  any  thing 
else." 

So  she  told  me  the  true  story  of  her  rescue 
of  Stanley  Wade  for  the  sake  of  his  wife. 

"You  see,"  she  concluded,  lightly,  turning 
off  so  the  force  of  the  narrative  which  her 
dramatic  instinct  had  shown  in  all  its  power, 
much  as  she  slurred  her  own  part  in  it,  "  I  felt 
it  coming  on  then,  this  consumption ;  it  's 
been  in  my  family  for  years,  and  I  did  n't  know 
then  whether  it  would  be  the  hasty  kind,  or 
slow,  as  it  has  proved,  and  I  thought  I  might 
as  well  do  a  decent  thing  before  I  died." 

"  Did  you  not  know  of  what  that  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars'  reward  might  do  for  you  with 


276469 


38  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

your  failing  health  and  your  hopeless  future  ?  " 
I  asked,  after  a  while. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  said.  "  Women  of  my  sort 
always  do  think  of  what  money  can  do.  But 
she  wanted  that  man  more  than  I  wanted  the 
money.  Do  you  know  that  she  has  written  me 
constantly  during  these  seven  years,  and  begged 
me  to  come  to  her.  Do  you  understand, 
begged  me  to  come  to  her,  to  her  home  where 
her  little  child,  a  girl,  is  growing  up?" 
"  And  you  never  thought  of  going?  " 
"  What  do  you  take  me  for  ?  "  with  the  old 
toss  of  the  head.  "  No  !  " 

"But  this  scar,  Carmelita?"  I  said,  after  a 
long  silence. 

"  Oh,  that  is  my  husband's  legacy." 
"  Juan  Castro  was  your  husband  ?  " 
"  Yes.  Did  you  know  I  was  an  English  girl  ? 
I  was  a  farmer's  daughter,  living  near  Oxford, 
when  Castro  was  at  the  University.  He  fell  in 
love  with  my  looks,  and  I — I  adored  him.  We 
ran  away  together,  but  we  were  married  first. 
We  came  to  America.  When  we  had  been  in 
the  country  some  time,  he  grew  tired  of  me, 
and  then  he  told  me  that  we  were  not  really 
married,  since  he  was  Catholic  and  I  Protestant. 
I  was  a  girl.  I  did  not  know.  I  was  mad  and 
wild.  I  could  have  killed  him.  I  did  not  know 


CAKMEL1TA    CASTRO.  39 

what  to  do  with  myself.  I  went  away  with  his 
best  friend.  They  fought  about  me.  I  came 
to  hate  that  other  man — I  think  I  always  hated 
him — and  then —  '  She  turned  her  face  to  the 
wall.  "  You  know  what  then." 

"  You  had  not  this  scar  when  I  knew  you,"  I 
said,  when  she  had  lain  so  for  a  long  time. 

"  No.  I  've  had  it  for  five  years  only.  Castro 
met  me  one  day.  I  was  looking  ill  even  then. 
He  looked  almost  worse.  He  had  gone  through 
his  little  fortune,  had  been  confidence  man,  bar- 
keeper, heaven  knows  what,  though  his  people 
were  among  the  best  in  Mexico.  He  was 
broken  down  and  very  poor.  He  had  come  to 
get  money  of  me — of  me.  He  had  heard  in 
some  vague  way  of  the  Wade  affair.  When  he 
learned  about  the  fifty  thousand  dollars  he  was 
beside  himself  with  rage.  He  kept  it  down  at 
first,  though,  and  demanded  that  I  should  write 
to  Wade  for  money.  He  did  not  understand 
when  I  refused.  I  suppose  he  thought  he  would 
frighten  me.  He  had  often  been  cruel  to  me 
when  we  were  together,  even  while  he  still  said 
he  loved  me.  When  he  found  I  was  not  to  be 
moved  he  was  frantic,  and  at  last  he  dashed  at 
me  with  his  knife.  When  he  saw  the  blood — 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  it — he  was  frightened, 
and  ran  away.  He  thought  he  had  killed  me. 


40  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO, 

He  was  drowned  in  Yelva  creek  two  weeks  after 
that.  This  is  his  last  gift — all  that  he  left  me," 
she  said,  drawing  her  thin  finger  across  the  scar. 

When  I  next  visited  her  she  had  failed  visibly. 
She  could  scarcely  speak,  but  she  drew  from  her 
poor  bosom  a  little  packet  of  letters. 

"If  you— ever — see  her — give  them — back — 
to  her — with  my  love." 

I  took  them.  They  were  signed :  "  From 
Mary  to  Mary." 

This  was  in  the  morning.  I  could  not  stay, 
for  an  urgent  business  matter  claimed  me,  but 
I  promised  to  return  in  the  evening.  At  sun- 
down I  was  hastily  summoned.  When  I  en- 
tered the  room,  flooded  as  it  was  with  the  sun- 
set glow,  I  started  back  in  positive  terror. 
Carmelita  was  propped  up  in  the  bed,  her  eyes 
shining  like  stars,  her  glorious  hair  spread  over 
the  pillow  in  thin  billows  of  deep  gold,  two  scar- 
let roses  burning  in  her  cheeks,  overflowing  and 
hiding  that  cruel  scar. 

She  bowed  to  me  as  I  entered. 

"  Welcome,"  she  said.  "Any  friend  of  Seflor 
Mores — 

I  went  forward  and  took  her  hand. 

"  Dori't  you  know  me,  Carmelita?"  I  said. 

"Not  yet,"  she  answered,  with  an  archly 
radiant  smile.  "  But  we  shall  be  friends  I  am 


CAKMELITA    CASTRO.  41 

sure.  Ah,  thanks  !  "  She  held  out  her  hand 
and  took  in  it  an  imaginary  wine-glass.  She 
held  this  phantom  cup  to  her  lips  as  though 
draining  it ;  then,  with  a  gesture  of  indescribable 
grace  and  audacity,  threw  it  over  her  shoulder. 

As  she  did  so  the  marvellous  color  faded  sud- 
denly. The  whole  expression  of  her  face  altered, 
and  the  hand  I  seized  grew  very  cold. 

"  Carmelita  !  "  I  said. 

She  looked  at  me  with  a  glance  of  gentle 
correction. 

"  Mary,"  she  said,  "  my  name  is  Mary." 

"Yes,"  I  said.     "I  forgot." 

She  struggled  a  little  for  breath,  and  I  raised 
her  on  the  pillow.  She  turned  her  head  to  my 
shoulder  with  a  little  sigh,  and  a  thin  stream  of 
bright  red  blood  sprang  from  her  chilling  lips. 

I  staunched  it  as  best  I  could  and  watched 
the  lids  flutter  down  over  the  beautiful  eyes 
that  had  looked  on  so  much  evil.  Suddenly 
they  were  lifted,  and  she  looked  at  me  with  a 
long,  curious,  innocent  gaze,  like  that  of  a  wak- 
ing babe. 

"  Mary!  "  I  said. 

"  Ah  !  she  said,  with  a  smile  of  unspeakable 
content,  "  Mary  always,  now." 

As  I  laid  her  down,  a  knock  sounded  at  the 
door,  and  while  I  yet  held  my  quiet  burden 


42  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

three  people  entered.  Stanley  and  Mary 
Wade  and  their  child  stood,  too  late  by  the 
moment  that  separates  time  from  eternity, 
looking  down  on  the  worn  and  radiant  face. 

It  needed  but  a  few  words,  spoken  with  sacred 
quietude  in  that  still  presence  to  tell  it  all. 
Then  the  mother  lifted  her  child,  and  the  flow- 
er-like face  pressed  with  the  holy  fearlessness 
of  infancy  the  brow  of  the  dead  woman. 

Mourning  bitterly  they  sailed  away  to  their 
Eastern  home,  but  not  until  the  baby  hands  had 
planted  on  a  nameless  grave  in  the  soil  of  the 
Pacific  slope,  and  twined  about  a  shining  cross, 
a  trailing  wreath  of  English  ivy. 


II. 


THE  wild  cry  of  the  wind  had  softened  to  a 
continuous  sobbing  sigh  when  Mr.  Lenox  fin- 
ished speaking,  and  for  a  while  nothing  else 
was  heard  in  the  silent  hall.  At  last  the  Judge 
said  very  tremulously  and  simply  : 

"  Thank  you." 

The  others  did  not  speak  at  all.  Harry  had 
turned  his  back  on  the  rest  and  was  fluttering 
the  leaves  of  the  magazines  with  an  unsteady 
hand.  Never  mind  what  else  Harry  was  doing. 
Oh,  blessed  time  of  youth,  when  tears  are 
ready  !  How  sadly,  in  later  years,  we  turn  our 
dry  eyes  back  to  those  foolish,  soft-hearted 
days! 

Van  Corlear  was  rather  pale.  He  walked 
restlessly  about  the  room  for  a  while,  then 
spoke  abruptly : 

"  Who  will  speak  next  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  the  occasion  demands  any 
thing  further,"  said  one  man,  very  gravely. 

"  Oh,  yes,  it  does !  We  can  make  a  modern 
Decamerone  of  this  episode,  though  the  plague 

43 


44  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

— in  the  form  of  the  snow-storm — arrived  after 
we  got  here." 

"  A  Decamerone  ?  Six  of  us  !  said  one  of  the 
group,  derisively. 

"  We  '11  make  up  the  other  four  to-morrow. 

"  What  we  have  heard  has  hardly  been  in 
Decameronic  vein,"  said  the  Judge,  soberly. 

"  Hardly.  I  '11  tell  a  tale  decidedly  in  that 
vein  if  you  '11  listen,"  said  Van  Corlear,  with  de- 
termination. 

"  I  '11  hear  it  another  time,  Van  Corlear," 
said  Mr.  Lenox,  very  kindly.  He  pushed  back 
his  chair  and  moved  away. 

"  Let  him  go,"  said  Van  Corlear,  looking 
rather  resentfully  after  his  retreating  figure.  "If 
he  thinks  we  are  going  to  carry  off  that  story 
of  his  to  dream  over,  he  's  decidedly  mistaken. 
If  he  can  do  it,  let  him.  I  frankly  own  that  I 
don't  dare." 

But  Mr.  Lenox  was  coming  back  again. 

"  I  '11  hear  your  story,  Van,"  he  said.  "  Life 
leads  us  from  phase  to  phase  in  just  such  a 
fashion." 

"  My  tale  is  of  an  old  fellow  I  knew  once,"  said 
Van  Corlear,  "  and  true  as  yours  is.  He  was 
the  chief  physician  in  the  town  where  I  was 
born  and  bred.  Did  you  know  that  I  was  once 
a  simple  country  lad  ?  " 


THE  DOCTOR  'S  RIVAL.  45 

"  We  Ve  noticed  the  affecting  touches  of 
rural  simplicity,  that  no  art  can  disguise,  Van," 
said  the  Judge,  laughing. 

"  Nature  will  have  her  way,"  said  Van,  grave- 
ly. "  Harry,  you  young  beggar,  come  around 
here  to  the  fire  and  prepare  to  pay  homage  to 
my  talents  as  raconteur,  while  I  tell  you  of 

THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL. 

The  Doctor  had  married  in  haste  and  was 
repenting  at  leisure.  Not  an  uncommon  situa- 
tion, truly,  but  an  uncommonly  disagreeable 
one,  the  Doctor,  thought,  considering  those 
individualities  on  which  he  prided  himself. 

There  were  certain  reasons  for  the  existence 
of  these  distinguishing  traits.  The  blood  of 
sunny  Gascony  darted  through  the  veins  of  the 
little  physician.  His  mother  was—  —well,  she 
was  a  native  of  Gascony,  and  perhaps  we  had 
best  touch  only  on  this,  her  sole,  conspicuous 
virtue,  and  not  inquire  closely  into  her  career 
after  that  favorable  introduction  to  this  planet. 
But  the  Doctor's  father  was  a  most  respectable 
man,  a  most  excellent  physician,  and  a  most  in- 
jured husband.  He  had  unusual  conjugal  sus- 
ceptibilities— for  a  Frenchman, — and  bore  but 
restively  his  wife's  liberal  interpretation  of  the 
Decalogue.  So  one  day  when  she  returned  to 


46  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

their  pretty  home  in  a  suburb  of  Paris,  after  a 
six  weeks'  sojourn  in  the  city,  more  than  usually 
characterized  by  adventures  erratic  and  erotic, 
he  decided  that  he  would  speedily  make  arrange- 
ments to  have  the  joy  of  her  next  return  unim- 
paired by  the  presence  of  his  small  son  and 
himself.  He  also,  being  a  prudent' and  thrifty 
person,  elected  that  it  should  be  free  from 
the  resumption  of  household  cares,  and  on  her 
next  departure  sold  the  cottage  and  furnishings, 
arranged  his  affairs,  and  with  the  boy  and  several 
letters  of  some  value  as  credentials,  set  his  face 
towards  that  asylum  for  unsuccessful  lives,  the 
fortunate  discovery  of  the  late  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus. 

He  prospered  well  in  the  new  country,  though 
with  that  we  are  not  immediately  concerned, 
and  the  youngster  throve  on  the  wholesome 
economies  of  a  household  ever  kept  distinctively 
French  in  its  abundant  thrift.  He  grew  to  be 
a  sharp  and  active  lad,  and,  in  time,  naturally 
followed  his  father's  profession.  They  worked 
amicably  together  for  many  years,  and  the  son 
mourned  when  the  father  died,  with  that  filial 
devotion  which  seems  to  be  developed  in  the 
modern  Gaul,  at  the  expense  of  other  virtues. 

The  house  was  a  thought  too  quiet  with  the 
old  man  gone,  and  the  young  Doctor — young 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  47 

only  now  in  local  parlance,  which  had  been  used 
so  to  distinguish  him  from  his  father — naturally 
turned  his  thoughts  toward  matrimony.  At 
this  juncture  the  extremely  dissimilar  charac- 
teristics inherited  from  his  extremely  dissimilar 
parents  asserted  themselves  in  a  most  perplex- 
ing and  uncomfortable  manner.  He  was  highly 
sensible  to  beauty,  and  actively  conscious  of  the 
solid  attractions  to  be  found  in  a  rich  bank  ac- 
count. These  conflicting  allurements  were  ad- 
mirably represented  in  the  persons  of  Miss  Rosa 
Melvor  and  Miss  Martha  Tree. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  Doctor  to  himself  after  much 
meditation,  "  what  man  of  taste  marries  his 
sweetheart  ?  To  degrade  an  ideal  into  a  wife, 
to  contemplate  the  adored  one  as  she  applies 
hot  mustard  to  the  aching  tooth,  which  surely 
must  befall  in  the  course  of  a  lifetime,  to  be 
obliged  to  hand  her  gross  money  in  filthy  bills 
and  chinking  silver  that  she  may  buy  with  it 
hideous  utensils  to  be  used  in  her  kitchen, — 
bah,  what  horror !  True,  that  is  the  custom 
of  this  country,  but  I  am  a  Frenchman  by 
birth  and  conviction.  Rosa,  my  heart  is  ir- 
revocably thine.  That  less  worthy  gift,  my 
hand,  shall  be  bestowed  on  the  respectable 
Martha." 

Martha  accepted  the  hand  with  avidity.     It 


48  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

was  a  nice  little  hand,  well-shaped,  skilful,  and 
by  no  means  empty.  She  was  three  years  his 
senior,  and  he  was  past  forty,  and,  despite  the 
bank  account,  this  was  her  first  offer.  She  was 
not  handsome,  though  a  merciful  fate  had  de- 
creed that  she  should  be  blissfully  unconscious 
of  this  fact,  and  she  told  her  friends  that  it  was 
so  sweet  to  be  loved  for  herself  alone. 

Now  the  Doctor's  American  breeding,  while 
it  had  familiarized  him  with  American  customs, 
had  never  impregnated  him  with  American 
ideas.  He  had  believed  that,  after  a  brief 
period  of  courteous  attention  to  his  wife,  he 
would  be  permitted  to  devote  himself  to  his 
really  cherished  practice,  diversified  by  harmless 
sighs  sacred  to  the  thought  of  the  relinquished 
Rosa.  Little  did  this  amiable  child  of  a  distant 
clime  divine  the  disposition  of  the  American 
wife,  of  which  social  fact,  considered  as  a  class, 
his  Martha  may  be  said  to  have  possessed  all 
the  representative  vices.  Her  assiduities  ap- 
palled him  ;  her  blandishments  wearied  him  ;  her 
tyrannies  astounded  him.  She  took  possession 
of  him  as  the  American  wife  always  takes  pos- 
session of  her  legal  lord  and  actual  serf,  and 
would  n't  in  the  least  understand  that  this  was 
not  the  boon  he  craved.  In  truth,  Martha 
honestly  considered  herself  a  most  indulgent 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  49 

wife,  whose  many  concessions  to  her  husband's 
misfortune  in  being  a  native  of  other  shores 
required  explanations  to  her  conscience  and 
her  friends. 

"  Oh,  v/ell !  "  said  the  poor  Doctor  to  himself, 
"  but  one  knows  the  destiny  of  husbands.  But 
a  little  while,  my  friend,  and  one  will  supplant 
thee  in  her  regard,  and  thou  shalt  perhaps  own 
thyself  once  more."  But  even  as  he  spoke  he 
felt  little  confidence.  Martha  was  profoundly, 
hopelessly,  utterly  faithful,  with  that  most  re- 
liable fidelity  which  is — to  use  a  vulgar  simile — 
Hobson's  choice. 

"  Nothing  could  ever  tempt  me  to  think  of 
any  one  but  the  Doctor,"  asserted  she  on  all 
occasions,  and  had  her  husband  been  familiar 
with  English  literature,  he  might  have  an- 
swered, in  the  words  of  the  immortal  Micaw- 
ber :  "  My  dear,  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one 
has  asked  you  to  do  so." 

"  These  women,  these  women,  who  make  a 
virtue  of  necessity  !  "  he  said,  despairingly. 
"  Why,  why,  did  I  not  study  the  character  of 
this  person  ?  Why,  why,  did  I  think  with 
longing  of  her  dollars  ?  Sordid  pig  of  an  imbe- 
cile that  I  am,  a  million  would  not  pay  me  for 
this  slavery  !  " 

As  time  went  on  he  became  yet  more  aK 


50  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

jectly  wretched.  "  There  is  no  release  for  me 
but  in  the  grave,"  he  mourned.  "  When  I  ab- 
sent myself,  she  traces  me.  When  I  lock  my 
office  door,  she  sits  outside  and  sings — ah,  just 
Heaven,  what  sounds  are  those  ! — two  ballads 
called  *  Waiting '  and  '  Longing.'  May  he  who 
composed  them  live  to  experience  my  fate  ! 
When  I  am  cold,  she  is  pensive ;  when  I  am 
dull,  she  is  sprightly  ;  when  I  am  angry,  she 
weeps.  Is  there  no  way  to  alienate  this  per- 
vasive woman  ?  '  Where  have  you  been, 
love  ?  '  '  What  do  you  do,  dear  ?  '  '  With 
whom  did  you  speak,  darling  ?  '  Is  it  for  this 
and  for  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year  that  I 
have  sold  my  liberty  ?  " 

Flight  never  occurred  to  the  Doctor.  He 
was  far  too  well  placed  in  the  regard  of  his 
town  to  wish  to  leave  it,  and  the  gold  which 
he  loved  was  surely  piling  itself  up  in  the  fees, 
which  came  thicker  and  faster  each  day.  The 
Doctor  never  sighed  now  for  Rosa ;  his  one 
thought  was  to  disembarrass  himself  of  Martha. 

For  more  than  two  years  he  endured  this 
bondage,  and  might  still  be  enduring  it,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  sinful  resolve  of  the  trustees 
of  the  little  Academy  of  Music  in  Minkville  to 
present  French  opera  to  be  witnessed  in  that 
hitherto  undesecrated  temple  of  art.  The  Doc- 


THE  DOCTOR'S  KIFAL.  51 

tor  found  little  enjoyment  in  any  entertainment 
now,  but  motives  of  patriotism  impelled  him  to 
attend  the  first  performance.  Of  course,  Mar- 
tha went  with  him,  and,  of  course,  she  apolo- 
gized to  the  other  members  of  the  Presbyterian 
Ladies'  Zenana  Mission  Band  by  the  oft- 
repeated  extenuation  :  "  My  husband  being  a 
foreigner,  you  know."  She  also  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  explain  that  there  was  little  danger  that 
they  should  fall  "  into  the  habit  of  the  thing," 
as  there  were  to  be  but  six  performances,  after 
which  the  entire  troupe  were  to  return  to 
France,  leaving  Minkville  boards  desolate  and 
decent. 

The  tenor  was  a  good-looking  youth,  with  a 
poor  voice  and  a  fine  figure.  Martha  was  still 
susceptible,  and  she  raved  of  this  dapper  hero 
with  much  propriety.  The  Doctor  listened  at 
first  to  her  remarks  with  that  listless  inattention 
which  betrays  the  confirmed  husband,  but  as 
she  prattled  and  rambled  o;i,  a  dark  thought 
flashed  into  his  stupefied  brain. 

"  Aha  !  "  said  he,  "  at  last !  "  He  was  very 
attentive  to  Martha  during  the  rest  of  the 
evening,  but  she  appeared  a  shade  less  flattered 
than  usual  by  the  circumstance.  He  begged 
her  to  excuse  him  when  they  reached  home,  as 
he  had  to  write  a  very  important  letter  to  his 


52  TOLD   A  T  TUXEDO. 

old  friend,  Gaston  Voisin,  who  had  once,  with 
himself,  composed  the  French  population  of 
Minkville,  but  had  long  since  returned  to  his 
native  city  of  Rouen. 

One  evening,  some  weeks  after  this  agreeable 
dissipation,  as  Martha  beamed  upon  her  Doctor 
with  maddening  amiability  across  the  dinner 
table,  a  letter  was  handed  her.  She  held  it 
upside  down,  sideways,  straight,  slanting ;  she 
examined  the  illegible  post-mark  with  great 
care  ;  she  commented  on  the  foreign  stamp ; 
she  wondered  audibly  who  could  have  sent  it ; 
and  at  last,  having  gone  through  the  usual 
feminine  programme  on  such  occasions,  ap- 
peared to  be  suddenly  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  it  was  possible  to  gratify  her  curiosity  in 
some  measure  by  opening  it.  At  that  moment 
the  Doctor  was  summoned  by  an  imperative 
ring  at  the  office  bell.  Martha  unfolded  the 
thin  sheet  of  paper  and,  with  a  gasp  of  amaze- 
ment, read  : 

"  ANGEL  OF  MY  DREAMS  : 

"  Long  have  I  sought  an  ideal.  I  do  not  write 
well  thy  so  cold  language,  but  I  have  of  it  enough 
to  say  that  I  adore  thee.  That  night  when  '  La 
Fille  du  Tambour-Major'  was  displayed  at  the 
miserable  theatre  in  the  town  which  has  the 
happiness  to  contain  thee,  I,  Antoine  Nardin,  saw 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  53 

but  thee.  That  face  spirituelle  !  Those  charms 
ripe  !  Those  eyes  of  pale  fire  !  When  I  them  for 
the  first  time  contemplate,  they  demolish  me. 

"  I  have  learned  of  thee  that  thou  art  wedded  to 
a  compatriot  of  mine.  It  is  with  rage  that  I  re- 
member him,  miserable,  for  it  was  he,  I  know,  who 
sat  beside  thee. 

"  One   word  —  wilt   thou   send   me   one   word  ? 
Think  of  my  youth  and  my  sorrows,  and  suffer  one 
drop  of  balm  to  fall  upon  my  lacerated  heart. 
"  To  thee,  always  to  thee, 

"ANTOINE  NARDIN. 

" Rue  de— Paris." 

Martha  had  read  the  letter  at  first  with 
increasing  wonder,  but  when  she  laid  it  down 
at  last  all  surprise  had  ceased.  Her  cheeks 
were  very  red,  in  blotches,  I  grieve  to  say,  for 
that  was  their  uncomfortable  custom  when  in- 
vaded by  blushes,  but  she  was  not  surprised — 
on  reflection.  Was  she  not  beautiful?  She  had 
always  known  it,  and  had  been  shocked,  on 
aesthetic  principles  entirely,  at  the  Doctor's  in- 
sensibility to  the  fact  in  its  fulness.  Spirituelle  ? 
Ah !  Martha  looked  at  her  lean  wrists  and 
attenuated  arms.  This  young  man  was  pos- 
sessed of  great  discernment.  Ripe  ?  Surely. 
What  man  of  taste  finds  aught  but  rawness  in 
charms  that  have  not  basked  in  the  suns  of 


54  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

forty  summers  ?  Poor  fellow  !  So  he  had 
carried  her  image  with  him  over  wide  seas. 
Would  it  be  wrong  to  send  him  one  little  word 
of  comfort  and  admonition?  Of  course  it  was 
very  terrible,  she  thought,  with  a  thrill  of  com- 
placent horror,  that  she,  a  married  woman, 
should  be  addressed  by  any  one  (and  an  actor, 
too !)  in  words  of  love,  however  respectful,  but, 
like  her  husband,  he  was  a  foreigner,  you 
know. 

She  fled  to  her  room.  Now  it  was  her  turn 
to  lock  the  door,  and,  with  trembling  hands 
she  penned  the  following  epistle  : 

"  DEAR  SIR  : 

"  It  is  very  wrong  for  you  to  address  me  as  you 
have  done,  so  wrong  that  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  tell 
you  it  must  never  happen  again.  I  can  understand 
how  greatly  you  must  suffer  from  this  hopeless — 
sentiment.  I  need  not  say  that  I  think  your  singing 
and  acting  beautiful,  and  that  perhaps  if  we  had 

met  earlier but  it  was  not  to  be.     Forget  me, 

and  I  will  endeavor  to  forget  you. 
"  Yours  very  truly, 

"MARTHA  T.  PELLETIN." 

The  Doctor  was  able  to  pursue  his  avoca- 
tions in  peace  during  that  day,  and  for  many 
days  after,  Martha  spent  the  greater  part  of 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  55 

her  time  in  contemplation  of  this  new  interest 
in  her  life.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  she  re- 
served the  mighty  secret  for  her  own  delecta- 
tion. At  times  her  pride  in  the  sentiments  she 
had  awakened  made  her  resolve  to  tell  all  to 
her  husband  within  an  hour.  Then  the  fear 
that  he  might  be  angry — and  she  really  was 
rather  afraid  of  his  serious  anger — made  her 
hesitate.  Besides,  he  might  sternly  forbid  her 
to  answer  any  further  communications,  and 
circumvent  her  in  the  event  of  disobedience, 
and  Martha  wished  to  have  the  moral  credit  of 
a  voluntary  deference  to  conscience.  So  she 
contented  herself  with  darkly  mysterious  refer- 
ences to  the  hidden  perils  in  the  life  of  fasci- 
nating women  when  she  conversed  with  her 
friends,  and  dwelt  with  augmented  emphasis  on 
her  fidelity  to  the  Doctor. 

The  reply  to  her  letter  arrived  with  flattering 
promptitude.  This  forbidden  and  expected 
document  was  of  a  more  fervent  character  than 
the  last.  Antoine  told  her  of  the  kisses  he 
had  rained  on  the  cold,  cruel  words  traced  by 
her  so  divine  hand.  He  sent  her  a  photograph 
of  himself  in  the  most  effective  of  his  stage 
costumes.  He  wrote  of  charcoal  and  a  closed 
room,  of  pistols  and  poison  bowls,  of  all  sorts 
of  dreadful,  delicious  things. 


56  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

"Never,  never  will  I  answer  that  letter!' 
cried  Martha.  Accordingly,  she  sat  down  the 
next  Sunday  and  wrote  a  much  longer  and 
slightly  warmer  epistle  than  the  last,  in  which 
she  implored  him  for  her  sake  to  abandon  all 
thoughts  of  the  insidious  charcoal-fume,  the 
deadly  pistol,  and  the  contorting  drug. 

That  night,  with  the  photograph  hidden  in 
her  gown,  she  cast  many  glances  at  the  un- 
conscious Doctor  over  her  embroidery,  for  the 
first  time  with  something  of  criticism  in  their 
regard.  Well,  undoubtedly  he  did  present  a 
dried  and  tanned  appearance  in  contrast  with 
the  stalwart  comeliness  of  the  pictured  figure. 

"  And  this  miserable  little  man  dares  to 
slight  me,  while  that  beautiful  young  person 
adores  me,"  thought  Martha,  indignantly. 

Letters  rained  upon  her  after  this  fast  as 
leaves  in  autumn.  Martha  neglected  her  house- 
hold duties,  relaxed  her  pinching  economies, 
ceased  entirely  to  molest  her  husband,  and 
wrote  reams  in  answer.  The  Doctor  seemed 
strangely  oblivious  of  this  change  in  the  partner 
of  his  joys  and  sorrows ;  doubtless  he  was 
deeply  grateful,  but  he  said  nothing. 

Four  months  had  passed  since  that  first 
letter  from  the  young  French  singer  had  in- 
vaded Martha's  hitherto  well-regulated  bosom 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  57 

with  disturbing  thoughts.  One  day,  after  a 
brief  but  alarming  season,  in  which  none  ap- 
peared, one  came  written  in  a  tremulous 
hand. 

"  I  have  been  ill,"  wrote  Antoine — "  ill  unto 
death.  My  physicians  tell  me  I  can  but  recover 
among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland.  But  I 
am  wiser  than  they,  ignorant.  It  is  only  the 
touch  of  thy  hand  that  will  heal  me.  Come  to 
me  ;  but  meet  me  in  Switzerland,  my  adorable 
Martha  ;  leave  the  husband  ungrateful,  and  to- 
gether we  will  know  what  it  is  to  live." 

Martha  nearly  swooned  with  horror.  Elope  ! 
Was  that  what  he  meant  ?  She  elope  !  Oh,  the 
unspeakable  audacity  of  her  bad  young  lover. 
How  dared  he,  the  wretch  !  Ah,  but  how 
dared  she  thus  condemn  him  when  he  lay  sick, 
perhaps  dying,  and  all  for  her  ?  Might  it  not 
be  possible  for  her  to  go  to  him,  to  succor  and 
befriend  him,  and  return  to  her  husband  when 
he  was  restored  to  health  ? 

She  cabled  immediately  "  Impossible!  "  Then 
she  sat  down  and  wrote  that  she  wondered  at 
him,  was  horrified,  grieved,  wounded — and  how 
could  she  possibly  come,  anyway? 

Antoine  in  answer  gave  her  very  explicit 
directions  for  reaching  the  little  town  of 
Aupre,  and  stated  that  in  a  few  days  he  would 


58  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

be  on  Kis  way  thither.  It  was  all  simple 
enough.  Martha  had  visited  Switzerland  some 
years  before  her  marriage,  personally  conducted 
by  the  obliging  Mr.  Cook,  and  was  a  courageous 
if  not  very  experienced  traveller.  Now,  as  to 
ways  and  means.  Antoine  had  written  of  the 
income,  excellent,  according  to  French  ideas, 
which  he  derived  from  his  profession.  It  would 
be  so  sweet,  in  case  the  Doctor  should  die,  or 
any  thing,  to  owe  all  to  her  lover ;  but  Martha 
was  ever  a  prudent  soul  in  money  matters, 
and  she  drew  out  of  the  bank  a  comfortable 
little  sum  of  her  own  money,  and  arranged  that 
if  any  thing  should  detain  her  in  Switzerland 
after  her  services  to  the  invalid  were  no  longer 
necessary,  the  balance  should  be  paid  over 
according  to  her  directions. 

Then  she  read  four  chapters  in  a  French 
novel  and  compared  herself  to  its  heroine,  a 
most  fascinating  duchess,  and,  with  many 
qualms,  but  unimpaired  resolution,  fled  from 
the  roof  of  her  lord.  She  left  the  regulation 
letter,  explaining  that  she  went  to  the  side  of 
the  only  being  who  loved  her  truly.  She  went 
as  a  friend,  as  sister,  but  she  could  not  be  dull 
to  the  voice  that  called  her.  She  bade  her 
husband  farewell  with  a  heart  of  stone,  she 
said.  He  had  never'  remembered  what  was 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  59 

due  to  her,  and  she  could  not  see  that  in  this 
agonizing  hour  there  was  any  thing  due  to 
him. 

Poor  Martha's  elderly  nose  was  cruelly  nipped 
by  the  cold,  her  limbs  were  stiff  with  fatigue, 
her  eyes  blinded  by  the  strong  light  that  had 
been  around  her  all  day  when  she  arrived  at  the 
little  inn  in  Aupre,  but  she  heroically  ignored 
her  personal  discomforts." 

"  Take  me  at  once  to  the  sick  gentleman,  to 
Monsieur  Nardin,"  she  said. 

"  Pardon,  Madame,"  said  the  bowing  host, 
"  but  he  is  not  here,  this  Monsieur." 
"  Not  here !  "  cried  Martha,  gasping. 
"  Ah,  but  stay  !  "  said  the  landlord,  applying 
a  meditative  finger  to  his  brow.     "  I  may  per- 
haps have  the  happiness  to  address  Madame  de 
Vivien  ?  " 

"  Yes !  "  said  Martha,  eagerly,  for  by  that 
euphonious  name  had  she  elected  to  travel. 
"  Is  there  a  message  for  me  ?  " 

"  But  yes,  truly.  A  letter  that  I  am  to  de- 
liver to  Madame  when  she  does  us  the  honor 
to  arrive  chez  nous." 

He  despatched  a  servant  for  the  letter,  and 
soon  brought  it  to  Martha  with  a  triumphant 
"Void!" 

Martha  tore  open  the  envelope  in  wild  agita- 


60  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

tion.  It  was  addressed  in  an  unfamiliar  hand 
to  Madame  de  Vivien,  and  the  enclosure  was 
written  in  French.  Slowly  and  painfully,  with 
many  starts  and  cries,  she  spelled  it  out,  and, 
as  she  read  the  last  word,  san'k  in  a  tumbled 
heap  at  the  feet  of  the  landlord. 

Alas,  alas!  The  letter  was  written  by  the 
physician  who  had  attended  poor  Antoine  in 
his  fatal  illness.  The  lover  had  died  on  the 
day  that  she  arrived  at  Queenstown,  en  route 
for  Aupre\  He  had  no  friends,  said  the  melan- 
choly screed,  nearer  than  the  good  physician. 
Him  he  told  that  one  he  loved  was  to  have  met 
him  in  Aupre,  and  he  bade  him  break  the  sad 
news,  and  charge  her  to  consider  herself  hence- 
forth sacred  to  one  whose  last  hours  were  con- 
secrated to  the  thought  of  her.  He  claimed 
the  remaining  years  of  her  life,  for  though  she 
had  not  been  his  wife,  she  might  still  be  his 
widow. 

Poor  Martha  was  faithful  to  the  charge.  She 
established  herself  at  the  solitary  pension  in 
Aupre,  where  many  impecunious  but  respect- 
able Americans  and  English  did  congregate, 
engaged  a  local  artist  to  use  the  little  photo- 
graph as  a  clue  to  an  immense  idealized  por- 
trait of  her  departed  lover,  and  wrote  to  her 
husband,  begging  his  forgiveness,  but  assuring 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  6 1 

him  that  the  rest  of  her  life  should  be  past  in 
remembrance  of  Antoine.  She  was  calm, 
gentle,  autumnally  serene.  She  spent  much 
time  in  contemplation  of  the  mountains,  and 
broke  her  heart  in  an  unspeakably  melancholy 
and  enjoyable  manner.  She  was  important, 
she  was  somebody,  she  was  the  heroine  of  a 
tragic  romance.  How  petty  did  the  village 
comedies,  enacted  by  her  friends,  Mrs.  Jonas 
Brown  and  Miss  Letitia  Hunter,  appear  in 
retrospective  contrast.  "  Ah,  said  Martha, 
looking  off  at  the  distant  sky,  "  I  have  lived 
and  loved.  What  a  destiny  for  one  from 
Minkville!  " 

The  Doctor  wrote  two  letters  after  receiving 
hers.  The  one  in  reply  to  that  of  his  faithless 
wife  was  also  calm,  gentle,  serene.  He  felt  no 
bitterness  toward  her.  His  desolate  heart,  his 
deserted  home  were  avenged  by  the  death  of 
his  supplanter  in  her  affections.  He  could 
appreciate  her  situation,  and  would  never  dis- 
turb the  mournful  repose  of  her  existence.  He 
would  assist  her  bankers  in  transferring  her 
account  to  Beaurole  et  Cie.  at  Geneva,  and 
after  that  the  veil  should  fall  forever. 
His  other  letter  may  be  given  in  full : 
"  Ah,  my  little  Gaston,  but  thou  hast  the  ability 
of  a  true  demon  to  so  realize  the  great  intention 


62  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

of  thy  so  relieved  friend  !  All  has  prospered,  all 
is  well.  I  am  once  and  for  all  at  peace.  Madame 
my  wife  is  no  more,  but  Madame  the  widow  of 
Antonio  Nardin  lives  in  perpetual  retirement  in 
the  village  of  Aupre.  Mountains  and  seas  extend 
between  us,  and  for  always. 

"  There  is  a  proverb,  my  brave  boy,  my  admi- 
rable fox,  which  tells  us  that  heaven  helps  those 
who  have  the  address  to  help  themselves.  Thou 
knowest  with  what  dread  I  have  thought  of  the 
day  when  Madame  my  wife  should  discover  the 
talents  I  have  employed  to  secure  our  mutual 
felicity.  My  friend,  that  day  will  never  come. 
Hast  thou  not  seen  in  the  papers  that  Nardin  has 
inherited  a  fortune  of  value  three  thousand  francs 
a  year  !  And  that  he  abandons  the  stage,  re- 
suming his  own  name,  and  departing  to  Norway, 
there  to  end  his  days  with  his  Norwegian  wife. 
Surely  one  so  fortunate  would  with  ease  pardon, 
if  he  discover,  our  use  of  his  convenient  name.  If 
only  the  fools  of  papers  come  not  in  the  way  of 
Madame  my  wife  !  But  I  trust  in  that  so  obliging 
heaven  which  has  thus  far  recognized  and  approved 
my  efforts  to  aid  myself,  and  the  fortunes  of  chance. 
Nardin  is  not  of  importance  to  be  mentioned  again. 

"Come,  now,  when  thou  wilt  to  America.  My 
house,  my  home,  my  heart,  dear  Gaston,  are  thine 
— always  thine  !  Thou  askest  if  I  have  no  thought 
to  profit  by  the  American  divorce,  so  easy  to  attain, 
if  the  charming  Rosa  shall  not  be  called  to  heal  the 


THE  DOCTOR'S  RIVAL.  63 

wound  in  my  lacerated  bosom.  Never,  my  friend, 
never  !  Had  Martha  penetrated  te  the  secret  of 
our  amiable  arrangement  to  further  her  happiness, 
had  she  returned  to  me,  all  furious,  then  the  di- 
vorce should  have  been  my  protection  from  the 
faithless  woman  who  deserted  me  ;  the  fact  of  de- 
sertion could  be  proved. 

"  But  that  is  finished.  Matrimony,  of  it  I  have 
had  enough.  Rosa  is  fair,  is  young,  is  mild.  Shall 
I  render  hideous  that  view  to  which  distance  lends 
enchantment  ?  Ah  no  !  I  have  my  laboratory, 
my  patients,  my  beautiful  little  pile  of  gold,  which 
grows  each  day  higher.  It  is  mine,  all  alone. 

"  And  my  embraces  of  gratitude,  my  admira- 
tion, my  eternal  regard  are  thine  alone,  dear  Gas- 
ton,  and  I  beg  of  thee  to  come  speedily  and  witness 
the  undisturbed  felicity  of 

"  Thy  emancipated  friend, 

"HENRI  PELLETIN." 

"  Much  obliged,  Van,"  said  the  Judge,  with  a 
laugh,  in  which  the  others  joined. 

"  Oh,  I  say !  "  said  Harry.  "  It  's  an  awfully 
good  story,  but  wasn't  it  rather  hard  on  the  old 
girl?" 

"  You  're  a  nice  boy,  Harry,"  said  Van,  in 
answer  to  his  artless  criticism.  "  Yes,  it  was 
rather  hard,  now  you  mention  it." 

"  Do  you  know  what  time  it  is  ?  "  asked  the 


64  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO, 

Judge,  rising  with  weighty  deliberation.  The 
others  lookecUup  at  the  clock  over  the  chimney- 
piece.  There  was  a  general  exclamation  of 
amused  consternation,  and  the  party  rather 
abruptly  separated. 


III. 

HARRY  opened  his  eyes  the  next,  or  rather 
that  morning,  and  hopeful  youth  prompted 
him  to  anticipate  a  cessation  of  hostilities  on 
the  part  of  the  weather.  Alas  !  as  he  looked 
from  his  window,  the  same  dismal  sheet  of 
driving  snow  was  drawn  over  the  landscape. 
I  am  afraid  he  said  some  naughty  words  as  he 
dashed  back  into  bed  again,  with  a  stern  reso- 
lution to  abide  there  during  the  coming  day, 
born  of  that  curious  sense  within  us,  which 
prompts  us  to  revenge  ourselves  for  the  dis- 
comforts imposed  upon  us  by  fate,  by  adding 
a  few  of  our  own  invention. 

But  hunger,  that  wonderful  hunger,  which 
never  survives  the  teens  and  the  early  twenties, 
soon  drove  him  out  again,  and  into  his  clothes, 
and  down  to  the  piazza,  where,  with  the  snow 
whirling  in  the  bitter  wind  without,  he  ate  a 
prodigious  breakfast  in  a  leafy  bower  of  green 
and  an  atmosphere  of  summer  warmth.  After 
this  indulgence  he  proceeded  to  the  hall,  his 
eyes  ostentatiously  fastened  on  his  paper,  but 
ever  and  anon  giving  surreptitious  glances  that 
65 


66  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

at  last  assured  him  that  she  was  there,  nestling 
like  the  bud  she  was,  in  the  midst  of  a  gay 
group  of  ladies. 

"  More  snow !  "  said  Harry,  after  exchanging 
greetings,  with  a  gloom  that  he  felt  to  be  posi- 
tively treacherous,  so  soon  had  her  pretty  smile 
flooded  that  gray  world  with  sunshine. 

"  More  snow  !  "  echoed  a  handsome  woman, 
impatiently.  "  7am  going  back  to  New  York." 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Percy  !  How  unkind  you  are  to 
us  !  " 

"  Well,  when  one  comes  up  here  for  an  out- 
ing, and  is  compelled  to  spend  the  time  cower- 
ing over  a  fire,  it  is  not  calculated  to  develop 
the  social  virtues.  I  feel  unkind." 

"  I  like  the  fire,"  said  Harry's  little  sweet- 
heart, shyly.  "  And  easy  chairs.  You  do  not 
like  easy  chairs,  Mrs.  Percy?" 

"No,  I  prefer  a  side  saddle." 

"You  would  like  a  life  on  the  plains,  Mrs. 
Percy,"  said  Van  Corlear,  lounging  up  to  the 
group. 

"  Immensely." 

"  So  all  the  people  say  who  have  never  tried 
it,"  said  Mr.  Lenox,  leaning  over  Van's  shoulder. 

"  Then  you  would  n't  return  to  it  ?  " 

"  Except  in  memory,"  said  Mr.  Lenox, 
smiling. 


TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO.  67 

"  Mr.  Lenox's  memories  of  the  Far  West  recon- 
ciled us  to  the  state  of  the  weather  last  night," 
said  Van  Corlear. 

"  Oh,  give  us  the  benefit  of  them  !  "  came 
the  cry  in  chorus. 

"  He  told  us  a  story,"  said  Van  Corlear. 

"  Tell  it  us  !  "  begged  the  ladies  in  concert. 

"  No,  you  would  n't  enjoy  it,"  said  Mr. 
Lenox,  quietly.  "  Ask  Van  for  his." 

"  I  Ve  forgotten  it,"  said  Van,  indolently. 

"  Is  that  the  way  you  beguiled  the  midnight 
hour  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Percy. 

"  Yes,  we  sat  around  the  fire  and  told  tales 
till  morning." 

"  Let  us  sit  around  the  fire  and  tell  tales  till 
night,"  said  the  lady,  and  the  young  girl  at  her 
side  murmured  a  soft  "  Please  !  " 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  why  I  became  a  failure  ?  " 
asked  Van. 

"  Because  it  was  the  only  career  open  to 
you,"  replied  Mrs.  Percy.  "  No,  we  know  all 
about  that.  I  had  rather  hear  something  from 
Mr.  Lenox." 

"  Will  the  representative  from  the  Wild 
West  kindly  come  forward  ?  "  said  Van,  imper- 
turbably. 

"  Must  it  be  something  from  the  other  side 
of  the  Sierras  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Lenox,  good- 
humoredly. 


68  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

"  Yes  !  "  came  the  answer. 
"  I  am  at  your  service,  ladies,  and  you  shall 
hear  of  something  that  happened 

IN   THE   SHADOW   OF    MONTE   DIABLO." 

The  two  principal  rivers  of  California  are 
the  Sacramento  and  the  San  Joaquin.  The 
former  rises  near  Mount  Shasta,  among  the 
sierras,  in  the  extreme  northern  part  of  the 
State,  and,  flowing  through  the  rich  and  fertile 
valley,  pours  into  Suisun  Bay.  The  source  of 
the  San  Joaquin  is  Lake  Tulare,  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  State,  and  its  course  is  northerly 
through  the  counties  of  Merced,  Stanislaus, 
and  San  Joaquin,  until  it  too  reaches  Suisun 
Bay.  The  outlet  of  this  bay  is  by  the  straits 
of  Carquinez  to  the  larger  bay  of  San  Pablo, 
which  in  turn  mingles  with  the  waters  of  San 
Francisco,  and  San  Francisco,  through  the 
Golden  Gate,  goes  out  to  meet  the  sea. 

On  the  southerly  side  of  Suisun  Bay,  a  few 
miles  back  from  its  shores,  stands  a  lone  moun- 
tain, known  to  Californians  as  Monte  Diablo. 
It  was  here  that  the  initial  surveys  of  that  part 
of  the  country  were  commenced,  and  around 
the  rugged  sides  of  the  mountain  clung  many 
of  the  legends  of  the  early  Spanish  and  Mexican 
period.  It  was  up  the  difficult  slope  that  the 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      69 

good  Padre  Junipero  toiled  to  pray  during  a 
period  of  extreme  drought,  and,  being  tempted 
by  the  devil  with  a  cup  of  wine,  dashed  the 
alluring  draught  to  earth,  thus  winning  the  ob- 
durate heavens  to  open,  sending  down  a  healing 
shower  of  rain,  while  the  reviving  earth  looked 
up  rejoicing. 

Broad,  level  lands  stretch  out  from  its  base 
toward  the  bay,  and  by  the  small  stream  that 
flows  down  the  mountain  side — possibly  the 
undried  tear  of  disappointment  that  Satan  shed 
when  the  worthy  priest  escaped  him — in  eigh- 
teen forty-eight — the  terrible,  tumultuous,  de- 
lightful year,  when  the  spark  of  gold  in  a  Cali- 
fornia mill  flume  set  the  whole  Western  conti- 
nent aflame, — stood  a  large  adobe  house,  where 
dwelt  through  the  changing  seasons  a  lonely 
old  man.  He  had  a  companion,  to  be  sure,  for 
whose  comfort  he  manifested  always  a  consci- 
entious regard  and  a  care  so  scrupulous  as  to 
indicate  a  lack  of  the  unbounded  freedom  of 
affection. 

This  companion  was  an  elfish  and  sickly 
child — a  dark,  frowning,  delicate  girl,  only  a  few 
years  old,  who  received  all  attempts  at  caresses 
with  shrieks,  and  would  strike  out  at  the  kind 
hand  that  faithfully  administered  the  many 
drugs  required  to  keep  the  flickering  flame  of 


;Q  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

life  within  the  frail,  ugly  little  body.  The  pa- 
tient nurse  knew  better  than  most,  the  secrets 
of  healing,  and,  in  his  double  character  of  father 
and  physician,  watched  over  this  querulous 
mite,  the  only  human  interest  left  him  after  a 
life  of  extraordinary  vicissitude  and  fortune. 
But  often,  as  he  sat  silently  guarding  the 
hardly  won  slumbers  of  his  daughter,  his  mem- 
ory would  go  back  to  the  time  of  his  youth, 
when  he  had  held  another  child — Marie's  child 
— in  his  arms,  a  great,  rosy,  confident  boy,  who 
clung  to  him  with  exuberant  affection,  and 
looked  up  at  him  with  his  mother's  dark  eyes 
under  the  golden  curls  that  were  the  father's 
gift.  And  the  old  man  would  put  his  hand  up 
to  the  white  hair  from  which  the  years  had 
stolen  all  the  sunshine,  and  look  down  with 
grave  kindness  on  the  small,  sleeping  Juanita, 
while  the  grief  for  his  lost  boy  fed  daily  on  this 
renewal  of  paternal  duties. 

He  has  been  called  old,  this  solitary  man,  yet 
it  was  an  eager  life,  not  time,  that  aged  him, 
for  the  eyes  that  looked  out  now  on  Monte 
Diablo  had  opened  among  the.  Berkshire  Hills 
little  more  than  fifty  years  before,  and  had  met 
those  of  many  men  and  looked  on  many  scenes 
since.  The  only  child  of  a  farmer  and  his  wife, 
who  had  never  left  their  wooded  valley  even  to 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      J\ 

visit  the  capital  of  their  State,  there  was  a 
strange,  nomadic  strain  in  the  blood  of  Charles 
Morse  which  his  parents  resented  as  unaccount- 
able. It  was  less  remarkable  that  he  should 
be  a  student,  for  down  from  the  hills  and  out 
from  the  woods  of  New  England  have  wandered 
many  of  our  most  notable  scholars.  The  French 
and  Latin  books  which  Charles  saved  his  sparse 
coins  to  buy  were  kindly  looked  on  by  these 
simple  people,  who  were  willing  enough  to  be- 
lieve that  all  the  fruits  of  human  knowledge 
and  experience  were  not  collected  within  the 
walls  of  the  district  school,  but  the  wild  tales 
of  travel  and  adventure  over  which  the  boy 
pored  in  the  interminable  winter  evenings, 
finding  them  all  too  short  as  he  bent  his  bright 
eyes  and  eager  brow  and  flushed  cheeks  over 
the  alluring  pages,  were  regarded  by  his  elders 
with  disapproval.  "  A  rolling  stone  gathers  no 
moss,  Charles,"  said  his  father,  gravely. 

"  I  Ve  always  thought  he  favored  Elias,"  said 
his  mother  with  a  sigh,  for  Elias,  her  young 
brother,  long  dead,  had  come  to  no  good. 

After  a  while  the  kind,  chiding  voices  were 
silent,  and  the  lad  was  quite  alone  in  the  world. 
His  nearest  relative  was  a  young  uncle,  his 
father's  brother,  who  had  quarrelled  bitterly 
with  the  boy's  parents  over  a  small  piece  of 


72  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

property,  and  had  finally  gone  West  to  live, 
still  unreconciled.  At  seventeen,  with  no 
counsellors,  the  future  of  a  youth  left  suddenly 
his  own  master  is  much  at  the  mercy  of  his 
immediate  bent.  The  variety  of  young  Morse's 
tastes  assisted  his  judgment  now.  He  sold  the 
farm— that  was  to  be  expected — and  started 
out  to  see  the  world.  But  in  order  to  see  it 
well  he  determined  to  first  equip  himself  with 
an  education  that  would  explain  the  novel  ex- 
periences that  awaited  him.  He  entered  him- 
self at  a  neighboring  college,  where  he  soon  be- 
came known  as  a  student  of  exceeding  promise 
His  choice  of  the  profession  of  all  others  calcu- 
lated to  bind  a  man  to  one  locality  was  rather 
curiously  determined  by  his  intimacy  with  an 
old  physician  in  the  town,  a  scientist  and  a 
linguist,  who  became  greatly  interested  in  the 
brilliant  lad,  and  finally  persuaded  him  to  enter 
his  profession,  promising  him  a  partnership 
with  himself  when  his  medical  course  should  be 
ended.  Two  more  years  of  hard  study ;  another 
spent  in  walking  the  city  hospitals,  and  Charles 
Morse  was  settled  in  the  quiet  old  college  town, 
apparently  to  be  a  local  feature  while  his  life 
should  last. 

But  it  was  only  while  the  life  of  his  old  friend 
and  partner  lasted.     Him   he  aided  gently  to 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      73 

the  threshold  of  the  other  world,  then,  with 
his  first  sense  of  freedom,  left  prospects  of  solid 
excellence  behind  him  and  wandered  out  into 
the  world. 

He  set  his  face  toward  the  north.  Up  he 
wandered  through  New  England,  straying  over 
her  frozen  fields  and  through  her  dense  woods 
with  the  delight  of  an  Arab  journeying  across 
his  wide  desert,  sometimes  borne  along  by  the 
coaches  which  conveyed  travellers  in  those 
days,  oftener  on  foot.  At  last  he  reached  the 
St.  Lawrence,  and  drifted  on  its  broad  bosom 
to  Quebec.  He  passed  through  the  quaint 
streets  with  delight,  and  it  was  long  before  he 
could  leave  it  for  the  more  modern  town  of 
Montreal.  That  visit  to  Montreal  was  destined 
to  stay  him  for  a  while  in  his  wanderings,  to 
give  to  him  a  few  years  of  intense  joy,  and  a 
lifetime  of  tender  sorrow. 

Walking  one  day  through  the  odd  little  ham- 
let of  Pere  Lachine,  he  stopped  before  the 
door  of  one  of  its  quaint  cottages,  wherein  he 
descried  a  knitting  dame  wrinkled  with  the 
rigors  of  many  winters,  and  asked  if  he  might 
buy  a  cup  of  milk.  The  old  woman  moved  her 
eyes  only,  then  called  shrilly,  "  Marie  !  " 

A  slender  shape  stole  to  her  side,  bending 
till  the  long  plaits  of  dusky  hair  fell  across  the 


74  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

aged  working  hands,  and  a  soft  voice  answered, 
"Grand'mere?" 

For  answer  the  crone  only  motioned  towards 
the  young  doctor,  who  repeated  his  question 
with  a  new  diffidence.  The  young  girl  disap- 
peared within  the  house  and  reappeared  with 
the  milk.  As  she  handed  the  cup  to  the  hand- 
some stranger  she  lifted  her  eyes  shyly,  and 
he  saw  in  them  the  soft  splendor  of  the  south 
shadowed  by  the  sadness  of  the  north. 

Who  that  has  youth,  in  fact  or  in  memory, 
will  ask  if  the  young  man  tarried  in  his  jour- 
neyings  ?  As  the  traveller  over  the  desert 
comes  in  soft  surprise  upon  an  oasis,  fresh  and 
green,  and  lays  him  down  beside  its  purling 
stream,  and  beneath  its  plumy  trees,  in  deep 
content,  and,  ever  after,  bearing  the  burden  in 
the  heat  of  the  day,  looks  back  to  that  time 
of  deep  repose  and  quiet  bliss  with  unspeak- 
able regret,  so  the  wanderer  paused  by  the  side 
of  that  gentle  figure,  and  entered  into  the  beau- 
tiful quiet  of  her  maiden  world. 

The  old  grandam  sickened  and  died.  The 
young  physician  tried  to  save  her  for  Marie, 
but  medical  skill  has  a  poor  chance  when  time 
and  disease  battle  with  it  for  one  aged  frame. 
The  Doctor  came  home  to  the  cottage,  and  it 
was  a  home  indeed  for  three  happy  years. 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      75 

The  first  was  a  year  of  sweet  silence,  broken 
only  by  words  of  love  and  the  soft  murmur  of 
caresses,  but  the  second  was  pierced  by  a  baby's 
lusty  cry,  and  the  third  alive  with  the  gurgling 
music  of  baby  laughter.  How  the  father 
tossed  the  splendid  round-limbed  fellow  aloft, 
and  answered  the  crows  of  glee  with  deep  bass 
notes  of  joy,  handing  him  at  last,  rosy,  breath- 
less, and  glowing  to  the  meek  mother,  who 
took  him  to  her  white  breast,  and  brooded 
over  him  like  a  dove  of  peace. 

Nor  was  the  physician  idle  while  the  husband 
and  father  dallied  with  wife  and  child.  The 
Doctor  was  soon  a  loved  and  welcome  figure 
among  the  simple  people  of  Pere  Lachine. 
He  readily  adapted  his  scholar's  French  to 
their  patois,  and  never  was  the  healing  art 
more  faithfully  practised  or  gratefully  rewarded. 
Alas  !  how  peaceful  and  pleasant  it  was.  For 
Death,  the  conqueror  of  conquerors,  who  in- 
vades the  strongholds  of  palaces  and  lowers 
the  tents  of  the  mighty,  could  not  spare  that 
humble  cottage.  And  he  came,  as  he  comes  so 
often,  with  awful  wisdom,  choosing  the  fairest 
and  best  there. 

There  came  a  day  when  Marie  lay,  her  brown 
eyes  wide  with  a  pained  wonder  that  the  wise 
Jover  who  helped  so  many  could  not  help  her. 


76  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

Soon  that  piteous  look  of  sweet  reproach  hard- 
ened to  one  of  dumb  endurance,  then  faded  to 
blank  unconsciousness.  There  was  nothing  else 
in  the  fair  face  for  many  hours  after  that,  but 
at  last,  just  as  the  winter  dawn  was  filling  the 
little  white  room  with  a  flush  that  fell  like  the 
shadow  of  a  rose  on  the  meek  figure  on  the  bed 
the  grief-worn  husband  saw  light  and  life  shine 
out  in  that  supreme  moment,  while  the  spirit 
poised  for  its  final  flight. 

"  Mon  enfant  !  "  she  whispered,  with  a  love- 
ly smile. 

He  brought  the  child  and  laid  him  by  her 
side,  and  the  mother's  hand  strayed  over  the 
curls  that  her  eyes  could  no  longer  see." 

"  II  cst  si  beau  !  "  she  murmured.  "  C outvie 
toi,  mon  mari.  Ah,Je  stiis  bicn  kcurctisc  !  " 

With  these  simple  words  of  pleasure,  the 
gentle  soul  departed,  and  with  her  the  one 
complete  joy  of  the  Doctor's  life. 

He  could  not  stay  in  the  little  cabin  that 
grew  dark  and  desolate  with  the  mild  radiance 
of  that  presence  withdrawn.  His  large  man's 
hands  cared  but  clumsily  for  the  motherless 
child,  who  wailed  reproachfully  at  the  father 
gazing  helplessly  at  his  whilom  playmate,  in 
pathetic  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  that 
piteous  cry, 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      7/ 

In  the  next  cabin  dwelt  a  kindly  and  elderly 
couple  named  Pentier.  The  wife  was  a  placid, 
efficient  creature,  who  readily  gave  what  aid 
she  could  to  the  bereft  man  and  forlorn  baby. 
The  husband  was  known  to  cherish  a  fondness 
for  money,  remarkable  once  among  the  prudent 
and  thrifty  villagers,  and  was  thought  to  be 
willing  to  gain  it  even  at  some  slight  moral 
sacrifice, — otherwise  a  well-meaning  man  and  de- 
sirable neighbor.  Like  every  one  else,  he  was 
very  gently  disposed  to  Marie's  child,  and  was 
not  averse  to  the  young  presence  in  his  own 
quiet  cottage.  Soon  it  became  constant.  The 
little  fellow  turned  to  Louise  Pentier  with  that 
happy  confidence  which  children  show  under 
experienced  handling.  He  cried  when  his  fa- 
ther came  to  fetch  him  away.  The  Doctor, 
meanwhile,  had  grown  unspeakably  wretched 
and  restless.  The  old  wanderer's  fever  seized 
him.  He  wanted  to  go  away,  carrying  his 
blessed  memory  with  him  into  strange  scenes 
and  climes,  but  escaping  from  the  daily  tortur- 
ing suggestions  of  what  had  been  and  was  not. 

One  night  he  talked  late  with  the  Pentiers. 
After  they  had  left  him  he  moved  to  and  fro 
in  his  little  home,  making  arrangements  with 
quick,  practised  hands.  It  had  all  been  settled. 
He  had  paid  the  rent  of  the  cottage  until 


78  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

the  time  when  his  lease  should  expire  into  the 
hands  of  its  owner.  The  household  goods 
were  to  be  given  to  the  Pentiers,  and  they  were 
to  take  the  child  into  their  keeping  until  the 
father  should  return.  Joseph  Pentier  was  glad 
at  the  thought  of  the  modest  sum  to  be  paid 
for  the  support  of  the  boy,  but  Louise,  his  wife, 
thought  only  that  once  more  a  child  should 
play  upon  their  hearth,  from  which  her  only 
treasure,  a  daughter,  had  gone  in  early  girlhood 
to  follow  her  young  husband's  fortunes  in  the 
Western  world. 

There  were  a  few  things  that  the  Doctor 
folded  by  themselves  to  be  borne  with  him 
wherever  he  should  go,  and  be  seen  by  no  eyes 
but  his.  This  done,  but  one  thing  remained, 
something  even  harder  than  had  been  the  put- 
ting together  of  those  poor  trifles  that  had  once 
gained  a  grace  from  the  gentle  form  they  had 
decked — harder  almost  than  had  been  the  visit 
at  sunset  to  the  low  little  mound,  already  grow- 
ing green  as  the  memory  of  the  quiet  heart  be- 
neath the  young  grass.  He  turned  to  the  little 
bed  where  Marie's  boy  lay  sleeping,  and  kissed 
the  white  lids  that  hid  the  eyes  that  were  like 
hers.  They  opened  at  the  sorrowful  touch 
with  her  very  look,  and  the  man  caught  the 
child  in  his  arms  and  broke  his  heart  over  him 
<n  an  agony  of  tears  and  sobs. 


//V  THE  SHADOW  Of  MONTE  DIABLO.      79 

The  next  day  he  was  gone,  and  the  little 
Charles  played  undisturbed  about  the  Pentiers' 
door,  and  Joseph  Pentier  sat  in  Marie's  low 
chair  of  an  evening,  and  patted  the  boy  kindly 
on  the  head,  liking  him  well  for  his  own  sake, 
and  better  for  sake  of  those  coins  that  he 
brought  into  the  stroking  hand. 

The  Doctor  wandered  from  one  Western  city 
to  another.  Sometimes  he  would  remain  for 
many  months  in  one  place,  establish  a  small 
practice,  then,  as  his  prospects  brightened, 
wander  on.  At  last  he  found  himself  journey- 
ing southward  again,  and  entering  with  a  sense 
of  pleasure  the  fair  old  town  of  New  Orleans. 

At  that  time  the  Crescent  City  was  in  the 
full  tide  of  its  prosperity.  The  long  lines  of 
railroads  which  now  exist  had  not  then  been 
constructed,  and  the  great  traffic  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  with  all  of  the  business  of  the  sur- 
rounding States,  centred  there.  No  city  on 
the  American  continent  had  then  the  cosmo- 
politan characteristics  which  distinguished  New 
Orleans,  and  the  babel  of  soft  southern  tongues 
spoke  in  many  languages. 

But  I  think  it  was  the  language  of  the  city 
that  determined  the  Doctor's  stay  there. 
Softened,  changed,  rolling  with  the  thick  rich- 
ness from  Creole  lips,  it  yet  recalled  the  patois 


8o  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

of  the  Northern  peasants  of  Pere  Lachine,  and 
it  was  in  French,  Marie's  mother  tongue,  that 
the  business  of  life  was  carried  on.  He  came 
to  love  the  quaint,  gay  town  very  dearly,  and 
ever  and  anon  a  face  would  shine  softly  out 
from  lattice  or  balcony  that  recalled  in  its 
luminous,  dusky  sweetness  the  one  hidden 
under  Canadian  snows.  He  thought  he  would 
send  for  his  boy,  and  as  he  grew  older,  he  would 
point  out  to  him  these  shy,  dark-eyed  maidens, 
saying :  "  See,  your  mother  was  like  that." 
But  the  call  to  arms  disturbed  and  banished 
that  tender  purpose.  The  neighboring  State  of 
Texas,  then  under  the  dominion  of  Mexico,  was 
in  rebellion,  and  fighting  for  independence. 
Many  young  men,  the  flower  of  the  city,  had 
crossed  the  border  and  enlisted  in  the  army 
commanded  by  General  Houston.  All  Louisi- 
ana was  alive  with  the  fervid,  chivalric  sympathy 
of  the  far  South,  and  the  Doctor  felt  his  blood 
fire  as  excited  voices,  in  the  language  he  had 
learned  to  love  through  the  lips  of  his  dead 
wife,  spoke  of  comradeship  and  battle  and 
victory.  He  joined  the  Texan  army,  and  was 
assigned  duty  as  brigade  surgeon  in  a  short 
time. 

Within    six   months   he    was  taken  prisoner 
while  attending  to  the  wounded  during  a  des- 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      8 1 

perate  battle,  and  carried  to  the  city  of  Mexico. 
For  more  than  a  year  the  man  who  found  even 
the  limits  of  a  town  or  State  a  restraint  lan- 
guished behind  inexorable  bars,  his  restless  feet 
stayed  in  their  wanderings,  his  eager  spirit 
fretting  itself  into  tameness  within  the  limits  of 
a  cell. 

At  last  a  partial  liberty  was  granted  him. 
Through  the  intercession  of  an  influential 
American  resident  he  was  released  from  the 
prison  on  parole,  and  allowed  to  practise  his 
profession  within  the  limits  of  the  city.  The 
dull  acquiescence  which  had  succeeded  his  first 
months  of  impotent  protest  during  his  cap- 
tivity, now,  through  a  resumption  of  familiar 
ways,  became  invaded  by  an  anxiety  that  had 
been  one  of  the  chief  tortures  of  that  early 
time.  It  was  for  news  of  his  boy.  He  had 
been  in  constant  communication  with  the 
Pentiers  until  he  entered  the  Texan  army,  but 
after  the  last  letter  received  at  New  Orleans  no 
word  or  token  had  come.  He  had  attributed 
this  to  the  rapid  movements  of  the  army, 
though  other  and  less  important  letters  had 
reached  him  safely.  During  his  confinement 
he  had  been  permitted  to  write  at  stated  inter- 
vals, and  now  with  his  greatly  enlarged  privi- 
leges, every  facility  for  correspondence  was  at 


82  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

his  disposal.  It  was  in  vain,  letters  and  mes- 
sages brought  no  answer.  The  Doctor  lost 
heart.  He  remembered  Pentier's  well-known 
and  rather  unscrupulous  avarice,  recalled  the 
fact  that  that  last  New  Orleans  letter  had 
spoken  of  the  child  as  suffering  from  one  of  the 
many  ailments  of  childhood,  and  concluded 
that  Pentier  was  acting  the  part  of  a  rascal, 
still  receiving  the  unfailing  remittances,  while 
the  boy  was  dead.  He  became  more  certain 
of  this  when  a  newspaper  from  one  of  the 
Northern  States  dropped  into  his  hands  one 
day,  that  told  of  a  fever  raging  among  the 
Canadian  settlements,  and  of  the  great  mor- 
tality among  children  attacked  by  it.  He 
wrote  to  the  postmaster  of  the  village,  and 
again  in  vain,  and  remembering  that  that 
official  was  a  cousin  of  Pentier,  accepted  his 
silence  as  proof  of  collusion.  • 

Hopeless  and  joyless  he  went  on  his  rounds 
about  the  beautiful  city,  and  whenever  he  saw 
a  child  he  turned  his  face  the  other  way. 

But  Time,  the  Healer,  laid  a  cool  hand  on  his 
heart,  stilling  the  sharp  pang  to  a  dull  ache, 
such  as  most  of  us  bear  about  with  us  all  our 
lives,  eating  and  sleeping  and  working  in  fair 
comfort  all  the  while.  The  Doctor  did  his 
duty,  and  found  the  usual  reward  in  the  quiet- 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE   DIABLO.      83 

ing  influence  of  continuous  action.  At  last  the 
war  was  ended,  and  he  was  at  liberty  again. 
With  every  tie  broken  that  bound  him  to  the 
past,  he  turned  his  face  to  the  setting  sun,  and 
tried  to  forget  that  grave  over  which  the  sad 
trees  of  the  North  murmured  their  melancholy 
requiem,  seeing  always  in  imagination  a  shorter 
one  by  the  side  of  it. 

He  joined  a  party  who  were  bound  for  the 
mountains  of  Sinaloa  and  Durango,  prospecting 
for  silver,  and  for  a  while  the  life  of  the  mines 
gave  him  a  certain  rude  satisfaction.  But  he 
tired  of  it  and  his  illiterate  companions,  and 
under  convoy  of  a  bullion  train  travelled  to  the 
city  of  Mazetan.  The  then  small  and  insignifi- 
cant seaport — its  only  communication  with  the 
outer  world  through  the  city  of  Mexico,  or  an 
occasional  ship  that  stopped  to  barter  Yankee 
notions  for  hides  and  tallow — held  nothing  to 
detain  him  long,  and  he  was  soon  on  a  trading 
vessel  bound  for  Upper  California.  The  ship 
stopped  for  a  few  days  at  San  Francisco,  then 
only  a  scanty  settlement  of  a  dozen  or  more 
houses,  but  something  in  the  look  of  the  place 
attracted  the  Doctor's  capricious  regard.  He 
let  the  vessel  depart  without  him,  saying  that 
he  would  wait  for  the  next  ship,  with  a  vague 
intention  of  still  going  westward  until  the 


84  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

earth's  round  should  bring  him  into  the  far 
Orient.  But  the  new  little  town,  soon  to  develop 
into  the  metropolitan  exotic  of  the  Pacific 
Slope,  held  him.  There  were  there  some  hardy 
and  adventurous  spirits  akin  to  his  own,  and 
there  was  sad  need  for  his  professional  services. 
He  caught  now  and  then  the  accent  of  his  own 
New  England  in  the  speech  of  the  pioneers, 
and  the  sound  was  dear  to  him.  Perhaps,  also, 
the  Doctor  was  a  little  tired.  The  stress  and 
strain  of  battle,  the  privation  and  lassitude  of 
confinement — above  all,  the  bitter  certainty 
that  the  boy  was  gone  forever,  had  tamed  that 
roving  nature.  Ships  came  and  sailed  away 
without  him,  and  still  he  stayed  on  in  the  little 
port,  practising  diligently,  passing  most  of  his 
time  in  the  saddle,  as  he  rode  on  his  professional 
rounds  from  one  out-lying  ranch  to  another. 
It  was  a  strange  life ;  there  was  so  little  money 
in  the  country,  that  horses  and  cattle,  hides 
and  tallow,  were  used  as  circulating  medium. 
In  these  he  was  paid  with  a  lavishness  that 
gave  promise  of  the  opulent  and  over-powering 
methods  of  later  Californian  days,  and  he 
found  himself  a  stock  farmer  quite  without 
volition.  He  had  no  objection  to  assuming 
this  character,  however,  and  made  application 
to  the  government  for  a  tract  of  land.  He 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      85 

was  granted  five  leagues  at  the  foot  of  Monte 
Diablo,  where  he  built  him  an  adobe  house, 
and  here  at  last,  his  travels  ended,  he  came  to 
end  his  days.  He  did  not  come  alone,  how- 
ever. Many  years  after  his  arrival  at  San 
Francisco  he  had  attached  himself  to  a  Mexi- 
can family,  chiefly  because  the  daughter  of  the 
house  had  a  voice  and  a  trick  with  the  eye- 
lashes that  reminded  him  of  Marie.  She  was 
like  her  in  nothing  else,  but  when  the  young 
woman  was  left  quite  alone  in  the  world, 
through  the  death  of  parents  and  brothers,  the 
Doctor  asked  her,  quite  gravely  and  soberly,  to 
marry  him.  She  consented  with  delight,  for 
he  was  rapidly  becoming  a  wealthy  man.  She 
did  not  make  him  happy,  for  she  was  a  sickly, 
querulous,  and  exacting  creature,  very  unlike 
the  mild  wives  of  her  own  nation,  and  no  chil- 
dren came  to  make  the  great  adobe  house  a 
home. 

The  Doctor  grew  very  silent  under  her  com- 
plaints, and,  in  time,  morose.  He  devoted 
himself  assiduously  to  his  stock,  which  multi- 
plied rapidly,  and,  when  the  Americans  took 
possession  of  the  country,  he  was  one  of  the 
wealthiest  men  there.  He  had  been  many 
years  married  when,  to  his  amazement,  perhaps 
to  his  disturbance,  it  became  evident  that  his 


86  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

Juanita  was  to  present  him  with  a  child.  God 
knows  what  early  memories,  sad  and  tender  as 
the  strains  of  long-forgotten  lullabies,  the  ex- 
pectation wakened  in  him,  aged  as  he  was 
before  his  time.  He  was  very  gentle  with  the 
sick  and  terrified  wife,  and  as  her  weak  soul 
fled  from  the  world  with  the  first  cry  that  gave 
token  that  a  new  one  had  entered  it,  he  bent 
over  her  exhausted  body  with  real  grief. 

The  baby  was  curiously  like  her  mother,  and 
her  tiny  frame  seemed  to  harbor  a  perpetual 
resentment  against  the  author  of  her  being  for 
introducing  her  into  a  world  apparently  so 
little  to  her  liking.  Perhaps  the  Doctor  con- 
sidered this  ground  for  her  objection  to  him, 
and  regarded  it  as  a  justifiable  aversion,  for  he 
cared  for  her  with  great  patience  through  a 
wretched  infancy  into  a  graceless  and  delicate 
childhood. 

But  his  mood  became  very  bleak.  His  riches 
were  piling  themselves  up,  and  of  his  own  blood 
there  were  none  left  in  the  world  but  this  un- 
promising girl  and  a  young  cousin,  the  son  of 
that  uncle  who  had  quarrelled  with  the  Doctor's 
father  so  many  years  ago.  This  man,  young 
enough  to  be  the  Doctor's  son,  had  been  dis- 
covered by  him  in  the  person  of  a  clerk  in  the 
offices  of  Wells,  Fargo,  &  Company  in  San 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      87 

Francisco.  The  Doctor  was  not  one  to  keep 
alive  the  flames  of  an  ancestral  enmity,  and  he 
was  genuinely  pleased  to  meet  one  of  his  own 
name  and  race.  But  the  pleasure  was  short- 
lived— like  so  many  of  the  poor  Doctor's  joys. 
Henry  Morse  was  not  a  lovable  youth.  He 
was  a  surly,  dissipated  fellow,  on  whom  the 
attempt  to  conciliate  his  wealthy  relative  sat 
but  ill.  He  was  shrewd  enough  withal,  and 
managed  to  keep  the  knowledge  of  his  excesses 
from  his  employers,  and  instinctively  hated  his 
keen  old  kinsman  for  the  discernment  he  de- 
tected in  his  grave  glance. 

One  night,  late  in  the  autumn  of  eighteen 
fifty-three,  the  Doctor  sat  by  his  fire,  worn  with 
the  task  of  wooing  slumber  to  Juanita's  staring 
eyes,  and  meditating  on  the  general  unsatisfac- 
toriness  of  human  existence. 

"  I  must  make  my  will,"  he  said.  "  The  poor 
baby  may  die  at  any  moment,  and  then,  if  any 
thing  happens  to  me,  Henry  Morse  will  make 
ducks  and  drakes  of  my  hard  earnings.  They 
must  be  left  to  Juanita,  with  a  reversion  to 
some  charity  at  her  death,  if  she  dies,  as  she 
undoubtedly  will,  without  issue.  And  then  it 
will  all  go  in  reports  and  red  tape.  Well,  better 
so  than  to  grog-shops  and  gambling-hells  !  " 

As  he  stooped,  sighing,  to  push  a  fallen  brand 


88  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

back  into  the  blaze,  he  heard  a  knock  at  the 
door.  The  servants  had  long  since  retired,  and 
he  seized  his  candle  and  his  stout  stick  and 
went  to  open  it  himself.  A  weather-beaten 
figure  stood  without  in  the  darkness. 

"  I  have  lost  my  way,"  it  said. 

"  That  is  what  they  all  say,"  said  Dr.  Morse, 
dryly. 

"  I  'm  not  going  to  beg  of  you,"  said  the  man, 
answering  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  words.  "  I 
only  want  permission  to  sleep  in  one  of  your 
barns  or  outhouses." 

"  You  can't  have  it,"  said  the  Doctor,  harden- 
ing his  heart.  "  I  Ve  done  sheltering  tramps. 
It 's  not  four  months  since  one  of  them  tried  to 
set  my  house  on  fire,  after  I  had  taken  him  in, 
in  order  that  he  might  have  a  chance  to  plunder 
in  the  confusion.  Be  off  !  " 

The  man  still  hesitated. 

"  Do  you  want  me  call  my  dogs  ?  "  said  the 
Doctor,  sharply.  "  They  're  not  pleasant  fel- 
lows to  meet  on  a  dark  night,  unless  you  're 
intimately  acquainted  with  them." 

"  I  don't  much  care,"  said  the  stranger, 
wearily.  "They  'd  make  quick  work  of  me, 
and  so  much  the  better.  I  don't  know  how  to 
circumvent  them.  I  have  n't  the  luck  to  be  a 
tramp — by  profession." 


LV  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      89 

The  Doctor's  battered  old  heart  was  touched 
by  something  in  the  tone  more  than  the  words 
of  this  speech.  He  lifted  his  candle  higher,  so 
that  the  light  fell  full  on  the  face  of  the  man, 
who  stood  patiently  still  under  the  scrutiny. 

"  Why,  you  are  young  !  "  he  exclaimed,  for 
the  drifting  beard  and  stooping  figure  had 
given  an  impression  of  middle  age,  at  least. 

The  man  broke  into  a  fatigued  laugh. 

"  I  do  not  feel  so,"  he  said. 

"  Nor  look  so,  unless  you  examine  pretty 
closely,"  retorted  the  Doctor.  "  Here,  come 
in.  I  won't  turn  you  in  loose  among  my  barns 
and  outhouses,  but  you  may  lie  down  on  that 
bunk  before  the  fire.  My  bed  commands  a 
good  view  of  it,  you  see.  I  have  a  trick  of 
sleeping  with  one  eye  open,  and  if  I  see  you 
stir  in  a  way  that  runs  counter  to  my  ideas  of 
what  's  honest  in  motions,  I  '11  shoot  you.  Are 
you  hungry  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  stranger,  with  a  gesture  of 
disgust,  "  I  could  n't  eat." 

The  Doctor  eyed  him  closely.  "  I  guess  you 
had  n't  better  try  until  you  've  rested,"  he  said. 
"You  are  tired." 

He  turned  away  and  threw  himself  on  "his 
bed,  and,  looking  across  the  expanse  of  the 
great  room,  saw  the  other  slowly  divest  himself 


go  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

of  his  coat  and  throw  himself  down  on  the  rude 
couch.  The  eyes  closed  for  a  moment,  then 
opened  with  that  strained,  nervous  stare  which 
shows  that  nature  has  been  too  hardly  taxed  to 
find  ready  relief  in  her  healing  potion  of  slum- 
ber. For  a  long  time  they  lay  there  in  silence, 
the  stranger  gazing  out  into  the  fire-lit  room, 
the  Doctor  gazing  at  the  stranger.  At  last  the 
warmth,  the  .quiet,  the  unwonted  sense  of 
security  began  to  take  effect  on  the  over- 
wrought frame.  The  lids  fluttered  down  over 
the  dark  eyes,  and  with  a  gradual  relaxing  of 
the  tense  limbs,  the  young  man  slowly  turned, 
flinging  his  arms  above  his  head,  and  letting 
his  cheek  fall  against  one  of  them,  with  a  rest- 
ful sigh,  like  that  of  a  child  spent  with  play. 

What  was  there  in  that  attitude  that  brought 
the  Doctor  to  his  feet  ?  He  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment stiff  and  straight  in  the  dimness,  then, 
trembling,  sank  back  on  his  bed  again.  After 
a  while  he  raised  himself  up  cautiously,  and 
propped  himself  up  by  pillows  into  a  position 
which  brought  the  face  of  the  sleeping  man 
into  view.  Hours  slipped  by,  and  still  he 
stared  on,  though  the  fire  had  long  since  died 
out  and  left  the  room  in  darkness. 

When  the  full  morning  light  was  streaming 
in  at  the  windows,  the  stranger  wakened  sud- 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      Ql 

denly  from  deep  sleep  to  find  the  Doctor  stand- 
ing over  him.  He  had  food  in  his  hands,  and 
immediately  proffered  it,  saying  only,  in  an 
abrupt  fashion,  "  Eat !  " 

His  guest  ate  gladly  enough.  The  pro- 
found slumber  had  refreshed  him  greatly,  and 
he  looked  up  once  or  twice  from  his  breakfast 
with  a  confiding  smile. 

"  Where  do  you  come  from  ?  "  asked  the  Doc- 
tor, as  he  finished,  taking  an  empty  cup  from  him. 

"  San  Francisco,"  was  the  answer. 

"  All  tramps  come  from  San  Francisco,"  said 
Dr.  Morse,  grimly.  "You  don't  look  like 
a  Californian." 

"  I  'm  not,"  said  the  stranger,  falling  back  on 
his  pillow  again  ;  "  my  home  is  in  Illinois." 

"  What  are  you  doing  out  here  ?  " 

"Nothing." 

"  Like  the  rest  of  your  brethren  whom  you 
repudiate." 

"  Can't  you  see  a  difference  between  necessity 
and  choice,  my  friend  ?  "  asked  the  young  man, 
pleasantly.  "  It  is  because  I  can  find  nothing 
to  do  that  I  am  going  back  to  hard  work  and 
poor  pay  and  a  disappointed  wife  in  Illinois." 

"  Yours  seems  to  be  a  hard  case." 

"  I  'm  in  the  same  box  with  a  good  many 
others." 


92  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

"  What  brought  you  out  here  ?  " 

"  Oh,  it  is  n't  much  of  a  story.  I  live  on  a 
farm — a  little  one — in  Illinois.  It  is  a  poor 
neighborhood.  We  work  like  dogs,  all  of  us. 
The  crops  go  from  bad  to  worse.  The  few 
that  own  stock  have  the  devil's  own  luck  with 
it.  There  was  a  man  came  our  way  a  while 
ago ;  he  used  to  be  the  worthless  fellow  of  the 
township.  He  passed  through  on  his  way  to 
the  East  ;  he  had  grown  too  grand  to  live  in 
his  old  home.  He  was  a  rich  man,  sir,  and 
he  'd  made  every  cent  of  it  out  here  in  Cali- 
fornia. He  told  us  such  fine  stories  that  a  lot 
of  us  got  together  and  made  up  a  purse  ;  then 
we  drew  lots,  and  the  one  that  got  the  lucky 
strip  was  to  come  out  here  and  look  around, 
and  see  what  chance  there  was  for  a  number  of 
us  to  come  and  colonize.  We  're  all  about 
worn  out  with  work,  to  say  nothing  of  ague. 
But  I  'm  going  back  to  tell  them  not  to  go 
from  bad  to  worse.  We  're  too  late  for  the 
show.  I  would  n't  mind  so  much  for  my  part, 
if  it  was  n't  for  my  wife.  She  's  had  too  much 
put  upon  her,  and  our  three  babies  seem  to 
have  drained  the  courage  with  the  milk." 

"  Poor  child  !  " 

"  Ah,  vraiment !  Ma  petite  Helene  !  " 

Dr.  Morse  started  violently.  A  deep  crim- 
son flush  stained  his  face. 


IN  Tf/E    SHADOW   OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      93 

"  Do  all  Illinois  farmers  speak  French  ?  "  he 
said,  with  difficulty. 

"  Not  much.  But  I  was  n't  born  or  brought 
up  in  Illinois.  I  Ve  only  lived  there  for  ten 
years." 

"Where  did  you  live  before  that  time?" 

"  In  Ottawa." 

"  You  are  a  Canadian,  then  ?  " 

"  Yes,  by  birth,  though  my  father  was  an 
American." 

"  Were  you  born  in  Ottawa  ?  " 

"  No,  in  Pere  Lachine,  near  Montreal." 

The  color  had  fled  from  the  Doctor's  face  and 
left  it  deadly  pale  as  he  asked  in  a  whisper  : 

"  Is  your  father  living?  " 

"No,"  answered  the  young  man,  turning  a 
wondering  regard  on  the  questioner.  The  Doc- 
tor fell  on  his  knees  by  the  couch,  and  his 
shaking,  yearning  hands  hovered  above  the 
figure  there. 

"  Your  mother  ?  "  he  gasped. 

"  She  has  been  dead  these  many  years." 

"Yes!  "  cried  the  old  man,  beating  his  breast 
and  wringing  his  thin  hands  wildly,  "  these 
many,  many  years  !  " 

The  stranger  raised  himself  and  gazed  with 
alarm  into  the  sad,  wild  eyes  of  his  host. 

"  You  are  ill,"  he  said,  "  let  me  help  you." 


94    .  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

"  No,  no.  Not  ill.  One  moment  more.  Tell 
me  your  name." 

"  Charles  Morse." 

"Ah!  and  ask  mine." 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  "  said  the  young  man, 
mechanically. 

"  Charles  Morse." 

"  You  are  very  ill,"  said  the  stranger,  rising 
hastily.  "  Let  me  call  some  one." 

"  Another  moment !  Where  did  your  father 
die?" 

"  He  was  killed  in  the  Mexican  war.' 

"  Are  you  sure  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  other.  But  he  had  begun  to 
tremble. 

"  Listen  !  "  said  the  Doctor.  He  had  dragged 
himself  up  from  the  floor,  and  seated  himself 
on  the  side  of  the  couch.  He  took  one  of  the 
young  man's  hands  in  his  own  and  began,  in  a 
low,  still  rich  voice,  to  sing  a  sad  little  Norman 
air.  It  was  an  old,  old  chanson,  and  its  light 
measure  dealt  with  roses  and  terraces  and  a 
lady's  glove,  but  one  knew,  in  listening,  that 
weeds  had  long  overrun  the  forgotten  terraces, 
that  the  little  hand  that  wore  the  glove  had 
dropped  to  dust  a  century  ago,  and  that  nothing 
was  left  of  the  roses  but  a  faint,  sorrowful  scent 
lurking  in  the  depths  of  an  old  pot-pourri  jar. 


IN  THE   SHADOW  OF  MONTE  DIABLO.      95 

Many,  many  years  ago  a  little  child  had  been 
lulled  to  sleep  by  the  quaint  melody  that  had 
wooed  the  infant  slumbers  of  his  mother  and 
grandmother.  As  the  old  man  with  his  white 
hair  and  his  mournful  eyes  sang  on,  the  younger 
voice,  awakened  by  a  tremulous  throng  of  memo- 
ries, took  up  the  refrain.  After  a  while  it  bore 
the  burden  of  the  song  alone.  The  other  was 
silent.  The  young  man  sang  on  softly  to  the 
end,  then  turned  his  face,  all  broken  by  hope 
and  fear  and  wonder,  to  find  himself  clasped  to 
the  breast  where  he  had  rested  in  infancy, 
while  the  father  with  trembling  lips,  murmured 
Marie's  lullaby  to  her  son. 

*          ****** 

Peaceful  years  passed  calmly  away.  The 
Doctor,  his  wanderings  ended,  slept  in  the 
shadow  of  Monte  Diablo.  And  on  spring  days 
little  children  trooping  reverently  about  the 
green  grave  would  drop  flowers  above  the  quiet 
heart  of  their  father's  father.  And  the  Suisun 
still  empties  its  waters  into  San  Pablo  ;  and 
San  Pablo  flows  on  to  San  Francisco ;  and  San 
Francisco,  out  by  the  Golden  Gate  to  the  sea. 


IV. 


"  THAT  is  beautiful,"  said  Mrs.  Percy. 
"Thank  you  so  much,  Mr.  Lenox.  I  am 
glad  the  old  man's  stormy  life  ended  so  peace- 
fully and  pleasantly." 

Mr.  Lenox  said  nothing. 

"  Did  he  live  long  after  that  ?  "  asked  the 
lady. 

"  No,  not  long." 

"  Tell  us  about  the  meeting  with  the  grand- 
children," said  the  Bud,  timidly. 

"  I  never  heard  about  it,  my  dear." 

"  Ah,  Lenox  !  "  said  the  Judge,  suddenly, 
"was  n't  that  man  Morse  the  California  physi- 
cian, whose  case  brought  the  question  as  to 
what  constitutes  a  legal  marriage  before  the 
courts  for  the  first  time  in  that  State?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Lenox. 

•'  Why,  he  was  murdered  in  fifty-three  !  " 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  Bud,  with  a  plaintive  note 
of  grief. 

"  Ponderous   old    idiot !  "    muttered    Harry, 
glancing  savagely  at  the  distinguished  jurist. 
96 


A    POINT  OF  LA  W.  97 

"Was    he    really    murdered,    Mr.    Lenox?" 

asked  Mrs.  Percy,  regretfully. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  he  was." 

"  Oh,  and  what  became  of  the  son  ?" 

"  Ah,  that 's  another  story,  and  not  a  pleasant 

one  in  the  telling." 

"  I  think  we  are  willing  to  risk  the  chances 

of  unpleasantness  in  any  thing  you  may  tell  us." 
"  Indeed  we  are.     Please  let  us  hear  to  the 

bitter  end." 

"  Fortunately  the  end  was  not  bitter." 

"  Then  all  the  more  we  wish  to  hear  it." 

"  Yes,  Lenox,  let  us  have  the  rest  of  it ;  as  I 

recall  it,  it  was  a  very  interesting  case,"  said 

the  Judge,  weightily. 

"  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  a  man  may 

weary  of  the  sound  of  his  own  voice?"  asked 

Mr.  Lenox,  with  a  good-humored  glance  at  the 

waiting  group. 

"  A  man   may,"    said  Van,  with  a   sinister 

smile.     "  Now  if  you  had  said — " 

"  Oh,  there,  my  boy  ;  no  cheap  jokes.    I  will 

speak,  to  stop  them,  on 

"  A   POINT   OF   LAW." 

It  was  late  in  the  day  when  the  younger 
Charles  Morse  had  told  his  tale  to  the  ears  that 
waited  greedily  to  hear  it.  It  was  a  simple 


98  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

little  story  enough,  and   sad,  as   most  simple 
stories  are. 

The  Pentiers  had  left  Pere  Lachine  while  the 
Doctor  was  still  a  prisoner  in  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico. His  name  had  been  on  the  list  of  those 
killed.  Joseph  had  sighed  at  the  thought  that 
the  remittances  would  cease,  and  Louise  had 
tied  a  little  black  ribbon  about  the  child's 
throat,  and  that  was  all.  They  had  gone  to 
Illinois  to  live,  and  there  the  good  foster-mother 
had  died.  Pentier  was  kind  to  the  boy,  but 
he  had  begun  to  work  for  himself  when  he  was 
scarcely  more  than  an  infant,  and  did  not  see 
why  his  charge  should  not  do  the  same.  Charles 
was  bound  out  to  a  farmer,  and  early  and  late, 
scantily  fed  and  clothed,  treated  with  indiffer- 
ence and  severity,  though  never  with  harshness, 
he  toiled  like  a  little  slave  from  morning  until 
night  through  many  thankless  years.  After  a 
while  Pentier's  health  became  impaired,  and  he 
gladly  went  to  the  home  of  his  daughter  in 
Ohio.  Charles  had  never  seen  him  since.  He 
knew  for  a  certainty  that  he  had  never  received 
any  letters  after  the  last  one  from  New  Orleans, 
for  he  had  dealt  fairly  with  the  boy  always, 
and  would  besides  have  had  a  motive,  after  the 
remittances  ceased,  for  writing  in  order  to 
have  them  renewed.  The  fortunes  of  war,  the 


A   POINT  OF  LA  W.  99 

treachery  of  attendants,  the  frequent  robberies 
of  mails,  and  the  ill  favor  of  chance  had  all  com- 
bined to  defeat  the  Doctor's  efforts  to  find  his 
son. 

At  nineteen,  the  young  fellow,  thinking  to 
lighten  the  burdens  of  this  hard  world  by  help- 
ing to  overcrowd  it,  had  married.  He  had,  of 
course,  chosen  the  one  among  all  the  village 
maidens  least  calculated  to  be  a  sturdy  help- 
mate. It  was  the  clergyman's  daughter,  poor 
and  simple  as  himself,  finer  in  fibre  and  sweet- 
er in  nature  than  any  of  the  neighboring  farm- 
ers' daughters,  willing  to  die  for  him  if  need 
be,  but,  not  having  vitality  enough  for  so  de- 
cisive a  step,  only  able  to  work  herself  into  a 
state  of  great  delicacy  and  suffering.  The  rest 
had  been  already  told  in  the  early  part  of  their 
interview.  He  was  a  fine  young  fellow,  but'he 
had  inherited  something  of  his  mother's  yield- 
ing nature,  and  he  was  tired,  discouraged,  and 
beaten.  He  had  meant  to  go  back  to  his  wife 
and  children  and  hold  out  as  best  he  could  to 
the  end,  his  only  hope  being  that  the  end 
would  come  speedily,  and  to  all  at  once. 

But  now  all  was  changed.  Genuinely  hap- 
py as  he  was  to  find  the  father  of  whom  he  had 
had  nothing  but  a  dim  memory,  I  think  the 
chief  sense  in  that  gentle  and  disheartened  na- 


100  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

ture  had  been  one  of  unspeakable  relief  that 
the  burden  of  life  could  be  lifted  for  a  while 
from  his  tired  shoulders  by  stronger  hands  than 
his,  that  he  could  be  directed  and  helped  and 
cared  for  as  he  had  not  been  since  good  moth- 
er Pentier  died. 

Into  the  father's  heart  we  dare  not  enter. 
The  door  into  that  shrine  of  sacred  joy  is  shut 
against  all  our  cold  and  careless  world.  But 
after  a  week  he  grew  restless  in  his  happiness. 
He  wanted  the  final  arrangements  made  ;  he 
could  not  be  content  until  his  son  should  have 
gone  back  to  close  up  affairs  at  the  dreary  farm 
and  bring  away  the  wife  and  children.  The 
shadow  of  that  brief  impending  separation 
distressed  the  Doctor.  He  wanted  to  have  it 
over.  He  could  feel  no  security  in  the  posses- 
sion of  his  recovered  treasure  until  he  and  his 
were  established  at  the  foot  of  Monte  Diablo. 

It  was  soon  arranged  that  young  Morse 
should  start  eastward,  and  two  days  before  his 
intended  departure,  the  Doctor  started  over  the 
familiar  trail  for  Martinez,  en  route  for  San 
Francisco,  where  some  necessary  business 
claimed  his  presence.  Before  another  sun  had 
risen,  his  dead  body  was  found,  lying  in  the 
shadow  of  Monte  Diablo,  with  its  face  turned 
up  to  the  morning  sky.  Happiness  and  he 


A    POINT  OF  LAW.  IOI 

could  not  travel  long  together.  She  had  fled 
from  him  now  and  again  during  his  life,  and 
when  at  last  it  seemed  that  he  had  bound  her 
into  secure  captivity,  he  was  called  away. 

His  watch  and  money  had  been  taken  from 
him.  He  had  no  known  enemy.  All  things 
pointed  to  the  crime  as  the  vulgar,  oft-repeated 
murder  prompted  by  greed  of  a  little  gain,  and 
the  usual  inquest  was  held  and  verdict  ren- 
dered. 

The  son,  stricken  with  grief  and  awe,  tended 
his  sickly  half-sister,  and  offered  a  reward  of 
thousands  for  the  apprehension  of  the  mur- 
derer. There  seemed  nothing  more  to  do  for 
the  old  man  who  had  mourned  his  joys  per- 
ished untimely,  and  was  now  snatched  untime- 
ly from  his  joys.  But  no  long  luxury  of  woe 
was  permitted  him.  The  young  cousin,  Henry 
Morse,  who  had  come  on  from  San  Francisco 
to  the  funeral,  had  never  chosen  to  recognize 
him,  and  now  applied  for  letters  of  administra- 
tion on  the  estate  as  nearest  male  relative  of 
the  deceased,  and  natural  guardian  of  his 
daughter  and  heiress,  an  infant.  In  making  his 
application  he  did  not  choose  to  contest  the 
statement  made  by  Doctor  Morse  before  his 
death,  that  the  young  man  now  in  possession 
of  the  adobe  house  was  his  son,  a  fact  made 


102  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

startlingly  evident  by  the  close  personal  resem- 
blance between  them,  but  simply  claimed 
that  the  mother  had  never  been  married  to 
the  Doctor,  which,  there  being  no  will  in  exist- 
ence, excluded  the  new-found  son  from  all 
share  in  the  estate. 

Now  the  question  as  to  what  constituted  a 
legal  marriage  arose.  There  was  no  prece- 
dent in  California,  and  the  county  judge,  after 
giving  the  matter  due  consideration,  decided 
that  the  proper  way  was  to  grant  the  letters 
applied  for  on  the  filing  of  the  usual  bonds, 
and  await  the  contest  which  would  probably 
ensue,  when  all  the  allegations  of  both  sides 
would  be  placed  before  him. 

Charles  Morse  was  notified  that  he  could  no 
longer  reside  at  the  ranch,  but  that,  as  an  act  of 
charity,  the  executor,  his  cousin  in  fact  though 
not  in  law,  would  furnish  him  with  means  to 
return  to  his  home.  But  the  son,  stirred  by 
regard  for  the  wishes  of  his  father  and  the 
memory  of  his  mother,  as  well  as  by  the  in- 
stinct to  battle  for  his  rights,  was  not  so  easily 
to  be  put  out  of  the  way.  He  took  counsel 
with  his  father's  closest  friend,  a  retired  sea- 
captain  of  Martinez,  and  by  his  advice  consult- 
ed with  Messrs.  Merritt  and  Page,  a  legal  firm 
of  high  local  fame.  Mr.  Page,  the  junior  part- 


A   POINT  OF  LA  W.  103 

ner  was  a  shrewd  man,  and  good.  He  saw  a 
chance  for  a  fine  profit,  and  he  was  pleased  to 
aid  the  young  fellow  with  the  worn,  honest  face. 

"  The  case  is  one  of  great  uncertainty,  Mr. 
Morse,"  he  said,  "  and  you  have  not  money 
enough  even  to  pay  ordinary  expenses.  But 
we  are  willing  to  undertake  it  for  you  on  these 
terms  :  we  will  give  our  services,  make  the 
necessary  disbursements,  and,  if  we  succeed, 
send  you  a  bill  for  twenty-five  thousand  dollars. 
If  we  lose,  we  renounce  all  claims.  I  am  about 
to  go  east.  I  will  visit  Pere  Lachine,  obtain 
such  proofs  for  your  case  as  I  can,  and  return 
in  time  for  the  trial." 

The  offer  was  accepted,  and  Page  lost  no 
time  in  reaching  Pere  Lachine.  He  was  fortu- 
nate enough  to  find  a  few  of  the  old  inhabi- 
tants to  whom  Dr.  Morse  was  not  a  tradition 
but  a  memory,  and  he  found  himself  in  a  po- 
sition to  be  very  hopeful  for  his  friendless 
young  client.  The  necessary  affidavits  were 
prepared  and  sworn  to,  and  he  returned  to  New 
York,  where  for  a  brief  while  business  and 
pleasure  claimed  him. 

When  at  last  he  was  ready  to  depart,  the 
fancy  to  go  by  sea  seized  him.  The  Pacific 
Mail  Steamship  Company  was  then  fitting  up 
a  new  ship  to  go  to  San  Francisco  by  way  of 


IO4  TOLD   A  T  TUXEDO. 

Cape  Horn,  and,  finding  that  he  had  time  to 
make  the  voyage  before  the  case  would  be 
called,  Page  took  passage  in  the  San  Francisco. 

On  the  twenty-second  day  of  December  the 
beautiful  ship  passed  out  of  the  harbor,  and 
the  little  waves  caressingly  receded  before  her — 
treacherous  little  waves  that  gave  no  hint  of 
their  cruel  kindred  waiting  beyond.  In  two 
days  they  were  beating  and  dashing  furiously 
at  the  disabled  ship,  battling  impotently  with 
a  heavy  gale,  the  engines  helpless  from  the 
breaking  of  the  air-pump  piston  rod,  the 
spanker  blown  away,  and  the  foremast  gone 
over  the  side.  On  they  rushed,  clambering 
higher,  until  at  last,  massed  together  in  one 
overwhelming  volume,  they  swept  over  the 
wreck,  and  receded,  bearing  one-hundred  and 
fifty  people  away  with  them. 

A  little  later  the  survivors  were  rescued  by 
the  ship  Antarctic  and  the  barques  Kilby  and 
Three  Bells  and  with  the  New  Year  the  brave 
San  Francisco  sank  out  of  sight  forever. 

Many  hopes  went  down  with  her,  among 
them  those  of  poor  Charles  Morse,  for  that 
cruel  first  wave  had  swept  Mr.  Page  far  out  to 
sea.  He  gave  up  his  cause  as  lost,  for  though 
the  circumstances  were  such  that  the  court 
would  have  been  justified  in  granting  addition- 


A    POINT  OF  LA  W.  105 

al  time  for  the  production  of  proofs,  California 
in  her  new  and  exciting  career  as  a  State  rarely 
consented  to  postpone  a  trial.  Like  a  young 
housewife,  she  hurried  her  affairs  in  brisk  im- 
portance, with  a  sense  that  the  days  were  not 
going  to  be  long  enough  for  her  to  finish  all 
her  work. 

The  old  Captain,  Dr.  Morse's  friend  was  very 
downcast.  "  When  I  know  the  store  Charley 
Morse  set  by  that  boy,  jest  found  as  he  was,  and 
how  he  hated  that  coyote,  Henry,  I  'm  about 
sick.  That  poor  child,  Juanita,  too.  She '11  have 
a  fine  time  with  sech  a  guardian." 

But  Juanita  did  not  need  his  pity.  The  con- 
scientious care  for  her  which  her  half-brother 
seemed  to  have  inherited  from  his  father  was 
not  coupled  with  the  father's  experience,  and 
one  day,  her  cross  little  face  softening  with  its 
first  expression  of  satisfaction,  Juanita  slipped 
away  from  a  world  where  she  had  never  felt  at 
home.  Soft-hearted  Charles,  remembering  hi3 
own  little  girls  on  the  farm,  grieved  over  the 
little  coffin,  but  Henry  Morse  triumphantly 
announced  himself  as  sole  heir  to  all  the  vast 
fortune. 

A  day  or  two  before  that  set  for  the  trial  the 
Captain  crossed  dejectedly  over  to  Benicia  to 
make  some  purchases,  and  had  not  the  heart  for 


106  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

his  usual  chat  with  the  grocer,  whose  wares  were 
his  chief  object.  He  answered  the  good  man's 
loquacious  comments  on  existing  affairs  rather 
shortly  and  sadly,  until,  looking  back  to  the 
rear  of  the  shop,  he  perceived  a  very  venerable 
old  man,  whose  lint-white  locks  showed  fair  in 
the  dimness.  Now,  in  that  period  of  Califor- 
nia's history  old  men  were  as  rare  as  "  snakes  in 
Norway " ;  the  wild  life  called  for  the  young 
and  strong. 

"  Who  is  he  ?  "  he  asked  of  the  proprietor. 

"  My  wife's  father,"  was  the  answer.  "  Come, 
and  speak  to  him,  Captain.  He  '11  like  it." 

Pleased,  as  the  aged  usually  are  with  any  at- 
tention, the  old  man  became  very  garrulous. 
Yes,  he  was  visiting,  he  told  the  Captain.  He 
was  getting  quite  a  traveller.  He  meant  to  go 
around  more  than  he  had  done.  He  had  been 
living  for  years  in  Ohio,  with  his  brother,  a 
widower  like  himself.  His  brother  and  he  kept 
house  together,  and  on  Sundays  they  always 
took  dinner  with  his  brother's  daughter,  as  nice 
a  woman  with  as  fine  children  as  one  would 
wish  to  see. 

"You  were  not  born  in  Ohio,  Mr.  Lambert," 
said  the  Captain,  noticing  a  quaint  and  pretty 
accent  in  the  tremulous  old  voice  which  puzzled 
him  not  a  little. 


A    POINT  OF  LA}}'.  IO/ 

"  Oh,  no,  I  was  born  in  France.  A  long  time 
ago,  my  boy,  a  long  time  ago.  But  I  'm  strong, 
very  strong.  There  's  wear  in  me  yet.  I  'm 
sounder  than  my  brother  Pentier,  though  he  's 
four  years  younger  than  I.  He  's  never  been 
himself  since  he  left  Pere  Lachine." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  the  Captain.  "  Is  Joseph 
Pentier,  of  Pere  Lachine,  your  brother?" 

"  My  half-brother." 

"  And  did  you  ever  hear  him  speak  of  Dr. 
Morse  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  and  I  knew  Dr.  Morse  very  well. 
I  was  living  in  Pere  Lachine  when  he  was  there. 
A  fine  man,  a  very  fine  man.  It  's  a  pity  he  was 
killed  in  that  Texan  war.  Did  you  know  him?" 

"  Know  him  !  He  was  the  best  friend  I  had. 
And  he  was  not  killed  in  the  Texan  war.  He 
was  murdered  here  a  few  months  ago.  How  is 
it  you  have  not  heard  of  the  case  ;  we  're  all 
wild  about  it?" 

"  I  only  came  last  night,"  said  the  old  man. 

"  When  did  you  last  see  Dr.  Morse's  son  ?  " 

"  When  he  was  about  twelve  years  old,  in 
Illinois,"  said  Mr.  Lambert.  "  He  was  a  fine 
boy,  very  like  his  father,  and  like  his  mother 
too.  Pretty  Marie  !  " 

"  See  here,  old  man,"  exclaimed  the  Captain, 
breathlessly,  "  it  looks  like  a — Design — from 


108  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

above,  your  coming  here  just  now.  Wait  till  I 
tell  you  a  story." 

So  he  related  the  experiences  of  the  Doctor 
and  his  son,  and  Father  Lambert,  his  old  eyes 
bright  and  his  old  cheeks  pink  with  excited  in- 
terest, listened  and  gladly  promised  all  that  the 
Captain  asked  when  he  had  finished  the  tale. 

On  the  following  Wednesday,  a  bright,  sunny 
day,  the  court-house  was  crowded  with  a  mass 
of  sympathetic  people,  for  popular  feeling  was 
all  on  the  side  of  the  son  so  romantically  re- 
stored to  the  father  who  had  been  so  soon 
snatched  from  his  brief  happiness.  When  the 
great  case  of  the  Morse  estate  was  called,  the 
attorney  for  the  executor  arose  and  opened  his 
address  with  a  manner  of  easy  and  almost  con- 
temptuous confidence. 

"  May  it  please  your  honor,"  he  said,  "  I  re- 
gret that  the  time  of  the  court  should  be  taken 
up  by  a  case  of  this  character,  when  there  is  not 
a  shadow  of  evidence  to  sustain  the  allegation:: 
made  by  the  parties  on  the  other  side.  That 
Dr.  Morse  recognized  this  young  man  as  his 
son  we  are  willing  to  admit,  but  do  not  regard 
the  admission  as  proof  that  he  was  married  to 
the  mother  or  ever  recognized  her  as  his  wife. 
We  are  aware  that  efforts  have  been  made  to 
obtain  evidence  from  old  residents  of  the  town 


A    POINT  OF  LA  IV.  109 

where  they  formerly  resided,  and  it  is  asserted 
that  the  affidavits  in  proof  were  in  the  posses- 
sion of  a  distinguished  member  of  our  bar  and 
with  him  were  lost  on  the  steamer  San  Francisco. 
But  does  it  seem  probable  that  if  such 
were  the  fact  the  deceased  gentleman  would 
have  neglected  to  have  copies  made  and  sent 
here  as  an  ordinary  precaution  against  loss  ?  It 
can  only  be  regarded  as  an  artifice  to  gain  time. 
The  great  value  of  the  estate  makes  it  impor- 
tant there  should  be  a  speedy  settlement,  and 
we  here  rest  our  plea,"  confident  that  the  de- 
cision will  be  such  as  to  establish  a  precedent 
in  all  cases  of  the  kind  which  may  hereafter 
arise  in  the  State  of  California." 

There  was  deep  silence  in  the  court-room 
when  Colonel  Merritt,  the  former  partner  of 
the  unfortunate  Page,  rose  to  reply. 

"  I  shall  not,"  he  said,  "  waste  time  in  argu- 
ment, but  proceed  immediately  to  disprove  the 
assertion  of  my  learned  brother,  that  there  is 
no  evidence  for  our  side.  We  have  at  hand  a 
witness,  discovered  by  a  fortunate  accident, 
whose  testimony  it  will  be  impossible  to  im- 
peach. I  will  call  Alexandre  Lambert." 

The  old  man  came  to  the  stand  and  took  the 
oath  with  tremulous  importance.  He  testified 
that  he  had  known  Dr.  Morse  and  remembered 


HO  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

the  time  when  he  came  to  live  in  Pere  Lachine 
as  the  husband  of  the  French  girl,  Marie 
LaCroix.  The  Doctor  had  always  recognized 
her  as  his  wife,  always  speaking  of  her  as  such, 
and  their  devotion  to  each  other  was  well-known 
to  the  villagers,  by  whom  they  were  highly  re- 
spected. He  could  not  say  that  they  had  ever 
gone  through  any  formal  marriage  rite,  but 
thought  it  probable  that  some  ceremony  had 
taken  place  between  them.  Among  the  people 
of  Pere  Lachine,  marriages  were  often  made 
by  mutual  consent,  and  were  always  accepted 
as  regular  and  binding  by  the  simple  commu- 
nity. He  remembered  the  birth  of  the  boy 
and  death  of  the  young  mother,  and  also  of 
hearing  from  his  brother  Pentier  that  the 
Doctor  had  been  killed  in  the  Texan  war.  He 
had  last  seen  the  boy  when  he  was  about 
twelve  years  old,  and  remembered  his  striking 
resemblance  to  both  parents. 

"  Would  you  know  him  if  you  were  to  see 
him  now?"  "Yes,  for  I  do  see  him,"  was  the 
answer.  "  He  is  sitting  there  to  the  left  of 
Colonel  Merritt." 

The  effect  of  this  statement  was  electrical, 
and,  with  a  few  more  questions  satisfactorily 
answered,  the  case  for  that  side  was  closed. 
The  attorney  for  Henry  Morse  closely  and 


A    POINT  OF  LAW.  Ill 

trickily  cross-examined  the  venerable  witness, 
but  failed  to  shake  his  stoutly  given  testimony 
in  the  least.  The  summing  up  was  brief  on 
both  sides,  and  the  judge  arose  to  announce 
his  decision. 

He  first  stated  the  law  in  such  cases  as  it  ex- 
isted in  some  of  the  older  States,  and  alluded  to 
the  various  decisions  which  had  been  quoted  by 
the  counsel  for  both  sides.  He  then  dwelt 
with  insistance  on  the  peculiar  customs  obtain- 
ing among  the  people  from  whom  Dr.  Morse 
had  taken  his  wife,  his  love  for  and  recognition 
of  his  son,  and  finally  the  unimpeachable  testi- 
mony of  the  witness,  Alexandre  Lambert.  In 
conclusion  he  said  : 

"  This  is  the  first  case  of  the  kind  which  has 
come  before  the  courts  of  the  State.  The  in- 
terests at  stake  are  so  large  that  whatever  the 
present  decision  may  be,  it  will  be  taken  to  a 
higher  court  for  review.  The  testimony  for 
both  sides  has  been  duly  weighed  and  sifted, 
and  the  judgment  of  the  court  is  that  Marie 
LaCroix  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
wife  of  Charles  Morse,  that  the  union  was 
recognized  as  lawful  by  the  community  in  which 
the  parties  lived,  and  that  the  young  man  rec- 
ognized by  Dr.  Morse  as  his  son  was  born  in 
wedlock  and  is  therefore  sole  heir  to  his  father's 
estate." 


1 1 2  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

The  audience  which  had  listened  in  breath- 
less silence  now  broke  into  tumultuous  applause, 
and  it  was  long  before  the  officers  could  restore 
order.  In  a  few  weeks  after  the  notice  of 
appeal  was  given,  a  decision  was  rendered  con- 
firming that  of  the  lower  court,  and  Charles 
Morse  came  into  his  father's  kingdom. 

Eleven  years  after  a  man  was  dying  in  the 
county  prison  in  Mariposa.  He  was  a  native 
Californian,  who  awaited  his  trial  for  a  daring 
mail  robbery.  When  it  became  evident  that 
he  had  but  a  few  hours  to  live,  he  sent  for  the 
sheriff  and  confessed  that  he  and  a  Sandwich 
Islander  known  as  Chiloha  had  been  accessory 
to  the  murder  of  Dr.  Morse,  the  principal 
being  Henry  Morse,  who  had  long  since  left 
San  Francisco.  Warrants  were  immediately 
issued  for  the  arrest  of  Chiloha  and  Morse,  and 
the  authorities  succeeded  in  tracing  both  men. 
It  was  found  that  Chiloha  had  been  killed  in  a 
brawl  in  Sacramento,  but  Morse  was  discovered 
living  under  the  name  of  Roderiguez,  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  State,  and  was  hanged  for 
the  crime  which  he  believed  had  crumbled  out 
of  sight  with  the  ashes  of  his  victim,  long 
dropped  to  dust  in  that  grave  at  the  foot  of 
Monte  Diablo. 


V. 


THE  party  had  lunched  and  broken  into  les- 
ser groups,  and  divided  again  into  couples,  and 
a  man  who  walked  up  and  down  the  piazza 
with  Mrs.  Percy  said  gravely :  "  You  ladies 
have  had  no  voice  in  this  matter  of  tale  tell- 
ing." 

"  We  have  not  wanted  it,"  said  the  lady. 

"  Is  n't  that  a  bit  selfish  ?  " 

"  Not  from  my  point  of  view." 

"What  is  your  point  of  view?" 

"  Oh,  I  see  what  certain  critics  tell  me  to  see, 
that  women  have  no  gift  for  story-telling." 

"  You  must  change  your  critics,  dear  lady. 
They  are  unworthy  of  you,  since  the  two 
greatest  artists  in  fiction  that  the  world  has 
known  have  been  women — George  Sand  and 
George  Eliot." 

"  You  place  them  above  Balzac  and  Thack- 
eray?" 

"  In  certain  characteristics  of  passion  and  im- 
magination,  yes." 

"  You    are    generous    to    women    always,    I 

"3 


!  14  TOLD  A  T  TUXEDO. 

know,"  said  Mrs.  Percy,  very  gently,  for  she 
knew  that  he  more  than  most  men  might  have 
been  pardoned  a  bitter  word  for  her  sex. 

"  They  do  not  need  my  generosity,  while  I 
have  gained  much  from  theirs,"  he  said,  kindly. 

The  lady  was  silent  for  a  while,  then  spoke 
suddenly : 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  a  story,"  she  said,  "  but  I 
can  read  you  one.  When  Mrs.  Brayton  went 
abroad,  she  left,  among  other  things,  a  manu- 
script with  me,  of  which  she  charged  me  to 
take  especial  care.  You  know  with  how  many 
lives  her  sweet  and  catholic  sympathy  brings 
her  in  contact.  I  know  nothing  of  this  manu- 
script. It  may  have  been  written  for  publi- 
cation, though  that  does  not  seem  probable  ; 
it  may  be  the  record  of  a  most  unhappy  life. 
She  told  me  to  read  it ;  when  I  asked  her  if  it 
was  for  my  eyes  alone,  she  smiled  and  said  she 
was  not  afraid  that  I  would  bring  it  to  any  eyes 
that  would  fail  to  read  it  reverently.  I  have 
only  shared  it  with  one  other  person.  Would 
you  like  to  hear  it?" 

"  Indeed  I  would,"  was  the  answer. 

Mrs.  Percy  tripped  away  and  came  back 
holding  the  little  roll  of  paper  with  gentle 
care.  They  found  a  quiet  green  corner,  out  of 
the  sound  of  gay  voices  and  the  tread  of  pac- 


IN   SOLITL'DE.  115 

ing  feet,  and  the  lady   read  aloud  the  written 
words,  wondering  what  hand  had  traced  them. 

IN   SOLITUDE. 

I  have  always  been  interested  in  myself, 
both  on  general  and  particular  grounds.  For 
the  first,  my  one  passion — until  that  night — 
has  been  the  study  of  character.  No  phase  of 
human  nature  is  without  fascination.  I  love  to 
be  in  the  midst  of  crowds,  to  see  face  after 
face  flash  past  with  its  revealing,  concealing 
hieroglyph,  giving  me  a  chance  to  half  guess, 
half  decipher  its  meaning.  In  what  slighting 
regard  have  I  always  held  those  who  find  their 
only  inspiration  in  wooded  slopes  and  purling 
brooks  and  leafy  ways.  For  me,  I  sleep  among 
these  gentle  influences.  Give  to  me  the  roar- 
ing street,  the  surging  crowd  ;  let  me  feel  my- 
self borne  on  these  throbbing  arteries  to  the 
heart  of  humanity.  Why,  how  these  people 
prate  of  nature,  nature!  What  is  the  very 
crown  of  nature — so  far  as  we  have  gone — but 
man  ?  The  dam  built  by  the  working  beaver, 
the  waxen  labyrinth,  honey  stored  by  the 
bee, — these  are  called  natural.  How  brief  a 
part  of  the  road  men  see !  So  also  is  the 
domed  cathedral,  the  towered  castle,  the  chisel- 
fretted  mausoleum,  ay,  the  spanning  bridge  of 


U6  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

which  I  see  the  slender,  solid  arch  with  my  fad- 
ing eyes  from  my  high  window.  Ah,  kindly 
curve  of  lights,  gleaming  with  magnificent  re- 
sponse to  my  little  taper,  I  see  in  you  the 
workings  of  nature  as  I  see  them  in  the  opales- 
cent thread  the  spider  swings  from  tremulous 
grass-blade  to  nodding  flower-plume.  They 
have  called  me  blind  to  the  face  of  the  Great 
Mother,  seeing  not  that  I  caught  the  higher 
radiance  of  her  inscrutable  smile.  Let  them 
love  her  in  her  lesser  manifestations  of  bud  and 
blossom  and  sky-dappling  cloud,  and  small, 
swift  denizen  of  wood  and  stream ;  I  find  her 
at  her  best  in  her  last  production,  man  and  his 
achievement.  Why,  look  you,  our  furred  and 
feathered  brethren  do  but  use  with  lesser  in- 
telligence the  material  they  find  to  carry  on  life 
with  ;  shall  I  stop  at  that  and  say  here  nature 
ends  ?  Nay,  I  leave  you  if  you  will,  to  rest  in 
this  elementary  knowledge.  I  will  take  the 
higher  branches.  I  will  search  the  hearts  of  my 
fellows  in  the  little  time  that  is  left  me,  and  it 
is  nature,  nature  worship  still. 

Why,  how  I  wander!  Well,  why  not? 
There  are  none  to  care  if  I  speak  or  cease.  If 
I  riot  for  a  while  in  expression,  it  is  the  last 
indulgence  of  a  sometimes  meagre  life. 

To  begin  again — and  wander  off  again  soon, 


IN  SOLITUDE.  I  I  / 

I  dare  say.  I  have  been  interested  in  myself  as 
a  unit  in  the  innumerable  host  of  men  and 
women,  a  unit  also  which  I  have  peculiar  ad- 
vantages for  studying  and  understanding.  So 
much  for  the  general  ground.  For  the  particu- 
lar, I  have  had  the  dispassionateness  to  see 
that  mine  is  in  some  respects  a  unique  nature ; 
so,  perhaps,  because  these  marked  individuali- 
ties have  flourished  well  in  a  soil  richly  common- 
place. 

I  was  an  odd  child  enough,  yet  with  all  a 
child's  love  for  toys  and  sweets  and  playmates; 
strangely  precocious  in  some  phases  of  intel- 
lect and  emotion  ;  painfully  normal  in  those 
acquisitive  and  predatory  instincts  which  caused 
me  to  weep  if  my  sister's  doll  was  redder  of 
cheek  and  longer  of  curl  than  mine,  and  to  sur- 
reptiously  exchange  my  dull  slate  pencil  for  her 
sharp  one.  In  short,  I  was  without  much  miti- 
gation the  selfish,  greedy,  turbulent  little  ani- 
mal called  a  child.  Those  "  trailing  clouds  of 
glory  !  "  Shade  of  Wordsworth,  ever  spent  you 
a  day  in  a  well-stocked  nursery  ?  The  ones  I 
drew  after  me  from  the  heaven  which  was  my 
home  bore  storms  in  their  bosoms ;  tempests 
in  a  teapot,  but  still  tempests.  We  children  at 
home  had  our  impulses  of  fidelity  and  affection 
and  graceful  sportiveness,  like  the  puppies 


H8  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

which  we  alternately  caressed  and  tormented. 
Like  them  we  cringed  and  fawned  where  a  ques- 
tion of  merited  blows  arose ;  like  them,  were 
marvellously  quick  to  discern  the  biggest  bone 
on  the  platter. 

My  brothers  and  sisters  were  fine  little  ani- 
mals ;  great,  serene,  rosy  creatures  who  played 
and  fought-  and  ate  and  slept  in  regular  rota- 
tion. I  was  a  little  black  wild  elf.  I  fought 
and  played  and  ate  and  slept  my  share  also, 
but  with  less  method  and  more  ingenuity.  But 
almost  with  the  dawn  of  consciousness  of  the 
visible  world  around  me  came  a  recogition  of 
difference  from  the  rest  which  invaded  my  baby 
soul,  which  I  could  not  define,  which  to  this 
day,  with  my  much  widened  intellectual  horizon 
my  greatly  enlarged  vocabulary,  I  cannot  better 
express  than  by  calling  a  sense  of  loneliness. 

"  Do  we  know  any  one  ?  "  says  Thackeray — 
great  kindly  shade,  all  good  be  with  you  !  "Ah, 
dear  me !  We  are  most  of  us  very  lonely  in  the 
world.  You,  who  have  any  one  to  love  you, 
cling  to  them  and  thank  God."  But  it  was  not 
that  loneliness.  I  had  plenty  to  love  me, — more 
than  I  deserved.  It  was  a  sense  of  complete 
isolation,  which  neither  the  affections  which 
have  surrounded  many  of  my  years,  nor  the  in- 
tellectual companionships  which  have  marked 


IN  SOLITUDE.  119 

most  of  them,  have  ever  dissipated.  It  was  al- 
ways with  me  until  that  night.  And  I  have 
never  known  it  since. 

I  remember  being  taken  one  day  to  a  church 
where  I  heard  a  remarkably  eloquent  and  bril- 
liant preacher — or  so  he  seemed  to  my  seven 
years'  old  comprehension, — and  feeling  that  this 
might  be  lessened,  that  there  might  be  some- 
thing which  would  leave  me  less  solitary  in  the 
midst  of  recognized  but  unexplained  facts,  if 
by  some  chance  I  could  be  brought  within  the 
range  of  that  stored  intelligence. 

In  the  afternoon,  long  and  still  and  sunny 
as  no  week-day  afternoon  ever  is,  following  the 
service  and  the  special  bounty  of  the  Sunday 
dinner,  I  fell  to  imagining  a  drama  replete  with 
charm,  in  which  the  not  impossible  freaks  of 
fate  might  allot  me  a  leading  part.  The  pro- 
gramme I  laid  out  for  myself,  gloriously  free 
from  restraining  probabilities,  ran  in  this  wise : 
I  would  have  strayed  from  my  unsympatheti- 
cally  practical  nurse, — an  initial  violation  of  pos- 
sibilities,— and  would  have  been  discovered  in 
the  devious  paths  of  the  park  by  the  exceptional 
clergyman  who  would  be  opportunely  com- 
muning with  nature,  but  imperfectly  though 
laudably  copied  by  the  city  fathers  in  divers 
uncomfortable  arrangements  in  rock  designed — 


120  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

on  the  least  improbable  supposition — to  repre- 
sent grottos,  and  sundry  delicate  vines  elaborate- 
ly arranged  to  simulate  a  wildness  of  which  the 
poor  things  were  most  incapable.  The  clergy- 
man would  instantly  be  attracted  by  my  spirit- 
iiclle  beauty.  I  knew  I  was  not  pretty,  but  I 
always  hoped  to  find  some  one  who  would  be 
familiar  with  certain  laws,  not  yet  popularly  ac- 
cepted, which  would  so  construe  my  irregulari- 
ties. He  would  ask  me  in  winning  tones  why 
I  wandered  alone.  I  would  answer  with  aston- 
ishing readiness  :  "  I  am  never  less  alone  than 
when  alone."  You  see,  my  range  of  reading 
was  really  surprisingly  wide  for  my  years.  The 
eminent  divine  would  be  stricken  dumb  with 
admiring  wonder.  He  would  take  the  tiny  hand 
of  this  infant  prodigy  in  his  own  and  prepare, 
with  regretful  envy  doubtless,  to  lead  her  to 
her  rightful  owners.  As  we  walked  amicably 
along,  from  my  pocket  in  felicitous  accident 
would  fall  copies  of  "  Hiawatha,"  "  The  Yellow- 
plush  Papers,"  and  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  By 
what  further  wrenching  of  existing  conditions 
I  expected  to  get  these  volumes  contempora- 
neously into  the  microscopic  pocket  of  the  ex- 
tremely abbreviated  frock  in  which  I  was  pre- 
sented to  the  public  in  those  early  days,  I  know 
not.  Perhaps,  like  the  canny  old  writers  of  fairy 


IN  SOLITUDE.  121 

tales,  I  had  a  glimmering  consciousness,  never 
formulated  into  an  idea,  of  a  "  fourth  dimension," 
which  along  about  the  thirtieth  century  A.  D. 
shall  leave  the  laugh  on  the  side  of  the  now  fan- 
tastic romancers.  Then  the  clergymen  would 
say :  "  And  these,  you  care  for  these,  my  child  ?  " 
I  would  answer  in  all  sincerity  that  I  did,  for 
dearly  I  loved  that  odd  trinity,  and  many  others 
as  strangely  assorted,  according  to  my  compre- 
hension of  them.  After  that  he  would,  with 
many  exclamations  of  delight  and  surprise,  con- 
vey me  to  my  parents,  on  whom  I  had  sedulous- 
ly striven  in  vain  to  impress  my  unimportant 
little  personality.  They  would  be  duly  wrought 
upon  by  this  distinguished  man's  notice  of  me, 
and  would  yield  a  rapturously  flattered  consent 
to  his  impassioned  entreaty  that  he  might  be 
permitted  to  instruct  me,  during  an  hour  of  each 
day,  in  Latin  and  various  illuminating  branches 
of  knowledge.  And  then,  O  rapture  !  I  should 
know  what  it  all  meant.  I  should  no  longer  be 
told  to  go  and  play,  that  I  would  know  when  I 
was  older,  that  little  children  should  be  seen 
and  not  heard  ;  I,  poor  mite,  who  was  conscious 
of  being  no  particular  delight  to  the  eye  and  a 
burning  desire  to  be  "  heard  "  responsively.  And 
in  the  midst  of  this  blissful  dream  came  my  moth- 
er's reproving  voice,  asking  me  why  I  wasted 


122  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

the  time  in  idleness  and  did  not  betake  me  to 
some  "  nice  Sunday  book."  Dear  woman  !  It 
was  a  cruel  awakening,  but  I  would  like  well  to 
hear  that  chiding  voice  now.  I  could  hope  for 
her  sweet  sake  that  the  old  gaudy  dream  of  a 
paradise  alight  with  gold  and  pearls,  and  many- 
colored  gems,  and  flashing  white  plumes  bear- 
ing lordly  angels,  might  be  realized.  No 
other,  more  ethereal  perspective  of  eternal  bliss 
would  be  homelike  to  her  imagination,  long 
fastened  to  that  solid  conception  of  a  reward 
to  the  faithful. 

Ah,  she  has  made  the  grass  greener  with 
her  grave  these  many  years,  and  I  shall  lie 
down  by  her  soon.  It  's  not  such  a  bad  thing 
to  sleep  by  the  side  of  one's  mother,  is  it  ?  But 
I  am  passing  glad  of  that  one  waking  moment 
in  the  dream  called  life  which  prefaces  the  un- 
broken slumber  of  death. 

I  wonder  why  that  absurd  little  incident 
stands  out  so  clear  to-night.  And  yet  I  think 
I  know.  They  say  that  as  one  is  about  to  leave 
this  world,  a  sudden  clearance  of  the  mist  dim- 
ming the  early  part  of  one's  stay  here,  however 
much  later  years  may  remain  shrouded,  is  apt 
to  come.  Other  recollections  of  that  long  for- 
gotten time  crowd  thick  upon  me  ;  my  gentle 
memory  of  my  mother  is  exchanged  for  a  sud- 


IN  SOLITUDE.  123 

den  sense  that  is  like  the  consciousness  of  an 
unseen  presence.  I  need  not  erase  the  childish 
retrospect.  It  soon  will  be  among  the  fading 
signs  of  what  was  and  is  not. 

I  passed  through  the  troublous  time  of  my 
childhood  rapidly,  so  rapidly,  in  fact,  that  I 
carried  some  of  its  attributes  on  into  woman- 
hood with  me,  and  have  never  wholly  gotten 
rid  of  them.  When  I  was  fifteen  I  was  a 
woman  in  some  things,  a  very  baby  in  others. 
It  was  a  sad,  precocious,  unguided  develop- 
ment, but  that  root  in  the  ordinary  which  my 
nature  sent  down  so  lustily,  saved  me  from 
much. 

I  read  what  I  pleased,  for  the  most  part. 
Now  and  then  a  book  was  capriciously  forbid- 
den me,  needlessly,  I  think  now,  for  I  had  not 
the  quickness  in  such  matters  to  detect  the 
evil  in  them.  When  the  days  of  fairy  tales 
were  done  the  poets  claimed  me  first.  A  glori- 
ous company  of  strong  singers,  they  caught 
my  puny  soul  and  whirled  it  aloft  in  a  flame  of 
sound.  That  was  all  I  knew  at  first.  The 
clash  and  clang,  the  sway  and  swerve,  the 
delicious,  ear-satisfying  pleasure  of  measured 
melody.  Then  the  thought  that  was  the 
motive  of  this  thunderous  music  stole  upon  me, 
and  I  read  and  read  and  cared  only,  after  a 


124  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

while,  for  the  theme  of  the  melody,  forgetting 
in  that  its  harmonious  utterance.  I  can  see 
myself  now,  a  slight,  spare  creature  with  owl's 
eyes  beneath  wise,  classic  brows,  and  the  sad- 
dest curved  baby  mouth  set  above  an  indeter- 
minate chin,  bending  over  The  Idyls  of  the 
King.  I  well  remember  the  thrill  of  half  ter- 
rified delight  with  which  I  discovered  that  I 
found  Lancelot  more  to  be  desired  than  Arthur, 
thinking  so  unique  a  preference  shared  with 
every  school-girl. 

Now  comes  an  endless  procession  of  story- 
tellers. What  shadowy,  narrow  figures  of  ex- 
cellent women,  armed  with  little  creeds,  ribbon- 
tied-like  compositions,  dot  the  ranks  where 
lordly  shapes  tower!  I  see  myself  turning 
from  Vanity  Fair  to  The  Heir  of  Redclyffe, 
from  David  Copperfield  to  The  Wide,  Wide 
World,  ay  even,  O  last  profanity  of  unequal 
youth !  from  Hamlet  to  The  Lamplighter ; 
laughing  at  myself  the  while,  yet  appeasing  the 
commonplace  child  in  me  with  the  simple, 
prejudiced  tales  that  bore  more  relation  to  my 
dull,  daily  life  than  the  larger  moving  histories 
of  people  who  lived  in  the  world. 

Now  is  my  world  of  books  invaded  by  a  living 
presence,  yet  less  real,  after  all,  than  any  figure 
I  find  therein.  This  figure  has  blue  eyes  that 


IN  SOLITUDE.  125 

are  very  large  and  clear  and  inexpressive.  Also, 
it  has  yellow  curls,  hyacinthine,  and  a  band  of 
golden  down  across  its  cherry-red  upper  lip.  I 
am,  perhaps,  seventeen  now,  and  it  smiles 
graciously  upon  me.  It  speaks  little,  but  that 
is  true  of  it  at  all  times.  I  think  about  it  by 
day  and  by  night.  I  cherish  the  inevitable 
faded  rosebud.  Ah,  must  I  confess  it  ?  He 
has  never  given  me  any  rosebud  at  all,  this 
beautiful  young  man,  but  I  know  that  withered 
blossoms  are  among  the  conditions  of  thought 
for  one  glorified  by  the  sentiments  which  have 
taken  posession  of  me.  I  procure  the  flower 
with  coin  of  the  realm  and  it  fades  beautifully. 
I  tie  together  with  pink  ribbon  a  number  of 
notes  from  my  girl  friends,  and  passionately 
pretend  that  they  are  love-letters  from  him.  I 
am  sure  now,  looking  back  upon  that  time  of 
folly,  that  I  should  have  been  disturbed  and 
even  shocked  had  this  radiant  youth  ever  come 
a-courting  me  with  definite  words  of  proffered 
love.  To  have  brought  him  into  that  position 
would  have  spoiled  my  ideal  of  him.  It  was 
love  I  loved,  or  what  stands  for  it  at  seventeen. 
At  last, -when  we  have  met  perhaps  a  dozen 
times  in  all,  he  goes  away  from  our  town.  I 
proceed  to  break  my  heart  in  the  most  ap- 
proved fashion,  and  enjoy  it  immensely.  1 


126  TOLD   AT  TUXEDO. 

brood  over  that  crumbling  bud  for  which  I 
paid  ten  cents  to  a  neighboring  florist,  and  I 
bedew  those  cheats  of  letters  with  successful 
tears.  Then,  all  at  once,  I  become  very  much 
ashamed  of  myself,  and  return  to  my  books  with 
new,  apologetic  zest.  Yet  it  is  curious  that  I 
never  had  the  heart  to  toss  away  that  fraudulent 
rosebud  or  burn  those  misrepresented  notes. 

I  lose  myself  among  my  beloved  authors 
again.  Soon  amid  the  throng  a  vast,  serene  wo- 
man's figure  arises.  With  delighted  awe  I  read 
of  Romola,  of  Dorothea,  of  Adam  Bede,  of 
Lydgate.  I  begin  to  find  Sir  Guy  Morville  a 
less  fitting  companion  for  Colonel  Newcome 
and  Pendennis.  The  striking  incompatibility 
between  John  Humphreys  and  Grandcourt 
makes  me  see  that  the  evangelical  hero  has  as 
little  in  common  with  Dobbin.  Of  no  one  can 
it  be  more  truly  said  than  of  this  mighty  wo- 
man, that  it  is  a  liberal  education  to  love  her. 
I  begin  to  put  away  childish  things,  and  devel- 
op with  surprising  rapidity  in  this  new  favor- 
ing atmosphere,  the  most  adapted  to  my  needs 
of  any  that  I  have  yet  found. 

One  day,  guided  by  that  wise,  gentle  hand 
which  fell  on  my  young  shoulders  with  a  more 
impelling  touch  than  any  other,  I  meet,  in  one 
of  my  prolonged  browsings  through  the  book- 


IN  SOLITUDE  127 

case,  with  a  philosopher.  I  open  the  book  with 
a  self-flattering  consciousness  of  my  exception- 
al tastes.  I  read  for  a  little  while  with  a  sense 
of  absorbing  culture  in  this  agreeably  miscel- 
laneous manner.  Then,  suddenly,  sorry  and 
arrested  with  startled  shame  in  my  vain  dream- 
ing, I  begin  to  delve  with  earnest  purpose  into 
the  quarried 'depths  of  thought.  Ah,  how  I 
read !  I  stumbled  along  a  path  made  rocky 
by  the  fallen  stones  of  my  early  idols.  I  sat 
dowa  often  and  wept  as  if  I  would  weep  my 
very  heart  away,  as  I  saw  the  temples  of  my 
young  faith  invaded  by  a  conquering  host  of 
facts  ;  and  again  I  would  leap  forward  exultant, 
as  the  world  widened  around  me  and  I  saw  the 
great  thing  that  life,  just  human  life,  is.  I  was 
still  with  awe  as  I  groped  trembling  to  the  edge 
of  nature's  mysteries,  and  I  laughed  aloud  in 
delight  when  old  puzzles  were  made  plain.  I 
lived  with  them,  my  philosophers,  and  I  loved 
them  ;  but  I  turned  back  at  last  to  my  novel- 
ists, dear  masters  in  the  supreme  science  of 
human  nature, — I  have  always  loved  them  best 
of  all. 

Oh,  my  books  !  my  books  !  In  these  days, 
when  I  am  sometimes  too  weak  to  stand,  I  like 
to  crawl  from  case  to  case,  laden  with  my  treas- 
ures, and  pass  my  hands  lovingly  across  the 


128  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

lettered  rows.  Not  even  the  blinding  memory 
of  that  night  can  make  me  forget  that  all  my 
life  through  these  have  been  my  best  friends, 
my  silent,  faithful  companions. 

When  I  was  three  and  twenty  I  married. 
During  these  years  of  study  I  do  not  mean 
that  that  young  folly  had  remained  unique.  I 
fear  I  was  always  most  catholic  in  my  affec- 
tions. Many  an  interrupting  fancy  came,  and 
some  brought  pain  and  some  brought  pleasure, 
but  they  passed  and  left  me,  unchanged  save 
by  the  gradual  growth  of  years,  in  my  dear  and 
quiet  world  again. 

Then,  when  I  was  deepest  in  my  books,  came 
one  who  said  with  more  meaning  than  the 
others,  that  he  loved  me.  Indeed  I  think  he 
did,  dear  man.  He  was  much  older  than  I, 
quiet,  grave,  studious.  He  told  me  that  this 
love  was  born  of  no  passing  passion — that  was 
for  boys, — but  of  his  belief  that  there  existed 
between  us  a  fine  and  enduring  sympathy  which 
promised  well  for  a  joint  life  of  that  serene  satis- 
faction which  is  the  best  medium  for  all  intellec- 
tual achievement.  And  I  told  him  he  was 
right,  and  besides,  that  I  was  very  fond  of  him. 
At  that  he  seemed  well  pleased,  and  kissed  me, 
more  like  a  lover  than  a  scholar  for  the  moment, 
and  then  we  fell  to  studying  again  a  new  writer 


IN  SOLITUDE.  129 

for  whom  he  had  a  great  regard,  and  whom  we 
were  reading  aloud  together.  For  all  this  took 
place  in  an  interval  between  chapters. 

He  was  not  very  rich,  but  he  had  money 
enough,  and  my  father  was  glad  to  give  me  into 
that  wise,  gentle  keeping ;  glad  enough,  for  he 
had  spent  many  days  by  my  mother's  grave  of 
late,  and  saw  that  already  his  shadow  fell 
warningly  on  one  of  the  vacant  spaces  left  by 
her  side.  So  we  were  married.  It  was  what 
I  wished,  and  would  have  chosen  for  very  pride 
alone,  yet  never  in  all  my  life  have  I  felt  so 
lonely  as  when  I  held  my  husband's  hand  and 
heard  him  say  :  "  Till  death  us  do  part." 

I  think  he  grew  to  love  me  very  much  more 
than  he  had  dreamed  was  in  him  to  love,  before 
he  died.  I  remember  well  one  day  when  he 
looked  up  at  me  as  he  bent  his  dear,  round 
shoulders  over  his  laden  desk. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said,  his  near-sighted  eyes 
wandering  over  my  large,  round  arms  and  un- 
covered neck, — we  were  to  dine  out  that  night, 
and  I  was  already  dressed, — "  My  dear,  have 
you  always  been  so  handsome?  " 

I  dropped  a  light  caress  on  his  gray  hair. 

"  No,  doctor,"  I  said,  "  indeed  no.  My  father 
said  last  night  that  he  had  no  notion  his  thin, 
dark  girl  would  ever  make  so  fine  a  woman." 


I3O  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

He  turned  quite  around  in  his  chair  and  gazed 
at  me  steadily. 

"  Nor  I,  nor  I,"  he  said,  after  a  while.  "And 
yet  you  have  always  that  look  of  a  little  lost 
child  which  has  glanced  up  at  me  so  often  from 
our  books.  My  beautiful  wife,"  he  cried,  with 
a  sudden  break  in  his  voice,  "  do  I  not  make 
you  happy  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  in  all  honesty,  "  as  happy  as  I 
can  be.  Why,  what  is  there  that  we  have  not, 
you  and  I,  you  foolish  doctor  ?  Mutual  for- 
bearance, solid  affection,  absolute  sympathy, 
fair  health,  enough  of  this  world's  goods,  no 
cares — if  only  my  father  were  stronger — what 
else  is  there  ?  " 

"  Ay,  to  be  sure,"  he  said,  thoughtfully, 
"  what  else  is  there  ?  " 

"Nothing,"  I  said,  and  the  world  was  very 
empty  as  I  spoke. 

"  I  have  delayed  you,  loitering  over  these 
papers,"  he  said,  rising  suddenly  and  arrang- 
ing his  coat,  that  would  never  look  fashion- 
able after  he  had  worn  it  an  hour,  let  who 
would  make  it.  "  Come,  my  dear,  come.  I 
forget  sometimes  how  young  you  are." 

Ah,  my  kind,  kind  friend  !  only  a  year  later  I 
stood  in  the  long  black  robes  that  swept  around 
me  in  perpetual  reminder  that  my  father  had 


Iff  SOLITUDE.  131 

passed  over  to  the  majority,  and  saw  the  lids 
close  over  the  wise,  thoughtful  eyes  that  had 
never  fallen  on  me  but  to  shed  a  benediction. 

He  was  ill  so  short  a  time,  but  I  knew  from 
the  first  how  it  would  be  with  him,  and  my 
heart  was  like  to  break  when  he  called  me  to 
him  and  said  in  quite  his  own  fashion  : 

"  It  is  curious  how  this  process  of  disin- 
tegration acquires  a  new  interest  when  what 
one  has  termed  one's  own  personality  is  con- 
cerned." 

"  Don't  leave  me  !  "  I  pleaded. 

"  Ah,"  he  answered,  with  his  patient,  melan- 
choly smile,  "  one  forgets  the  race  and  dwells 
on  the  individual  in  an  hour  like  this.  I  would 
blot  out  all  the  laborious  gleaning  of  years  to 
stay  with  you  a  little  longer,  my  poor  orphaned 
lamb." 

So  speaking,  he  fell  asleep.  He  said  no  more, 
my  dear  old  man,  who  had  said  so  much,  and, 
in  all  his  long  and  useful  life,  never  one  ill 
word.  For  twelve  hours  after  that  I  watched 
him  as  his  breath  grew  short  and  shorter.  At 
last,  when  the  midnight  hour  was  nearing,  I 
saw  his  face  suddenly  soften  into  that  of  a 
younger,  fairer  man.  Catching  that  glimpse  of 
the  youth  in  him  that  I  had  never  known,  I 
bent  over  him,  and  with  that  pleasant  look  of 


132  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

forgotten  boyhood  fixed  upon  his  sober  feat- 
ures, he  ceased  from  among  men. 

I  was  left  quite  alone  in  the  world. 

I  grieved  for  him  deeply,  deeply,  but  it  was 
upon  the  new  grass  on  my  father's  grave  that 
my  tears  fell  fastest.  There  came  a  time  when 
all  was  dark  around  me,  and  it  was  not  a  short 
time.  Then  the  impulse  of  my  healthful  youth 
asserted  itself,  and  I  went  back  again  to  my 
waiting  world  of  books. 

I  studied  patiently,  and,  I  think  now,  with 
some  ability.  My  husband  had  taught  me 
faithfully  and  well.  The  tempestuous  morning 
of  my  youth,  the  noon  calm  of  my  married  life, 
were  followed  by  what  promised  to  be  an  early 
and  long  afternoon  of  untroubled  thought.  I 
gave  to  myself  great  comfort  from  the  thought 
that  the  spiritual  struggles  of  my  early  days 
were  ended.  I  could  say  whatever  is  is  right 
and  mean  it  too.  I  learned  the  law  of  averages 
—so  much  happiness  here,  so  much  misery 
there.  I  led  the  scholar's  impersonal  life  for 
three  years,  and  I  saw  the  future  stretch  out 
before  me,  a  life  of  lettered  ease. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  my  fourth  year  of 
widowhood  that  a  friend,  who  often  sought  to 
draw  me  with  her  into  the  busy  current  of  her 
full  life,  came  begging  me  to  dine  with  her  on 


IN  SOLITUDE.  133 

the  following  night.  That  curious  disinclination 
to  break  into  routine  which  grows  upon  us  with 
each  successive  day  of  quiet  habit,  made  me 
feel,  as  I  did  always  in  those  days,  an  annoy- 
ance at  the  mere  suggestion,  for  I  saw  at  once 
that  it  was  an  occasion.  There  was  a  light  in 
her  eye  and  a  flush  of  importance  on  her  cheek 
that  showed  she  meant  more  than  just  a  friend- 
ly chat  over  bread. 

"  You  deserve  to  be  punished  by  an  immedi- 
ate reconsideration  on  my  part  of  all  hospitable 
intentions,"  she  said,  as  I  hesitated,  "  but  I  am 
always  more  just  than  generous.  Pray  do  not 
believe  I  flatter  myself  that  you  would  come 
to  us  for  love  of  me  or  mine.  I  come  with  a 
bribe  in  my  hand.  Calthorpe  is  to  be  with  us." 

My  eyes  did  open  then.  Calthorpe,  strongest 
and  saddest  of  the  singers  of  the  day. 

"  Come  !  "  urged  my  friend,  "  your  eyes  will 
never  scan  the  poems  clearly  until  you  have 
seen  the  poet.  He  is  very  beautiful." 

"  So  many  are  beautiful." 

"  One  might  know  that  you  seldom  visit 
the  outer  world,"  and  she  laughed  lightly,  "  but 
you  will  for  this  once." 

And  indeed  I  did  mean  to  heed  this  call. 
But  the  next  morning  I  awoke  weighed  down 
with  a  sense  of  something  unwonted.  I  grudged 


134  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO, 

the  break  in  my  tranquil,  monotonous  existence. 
When  I  looked  from  my  window  and  saw  wild 
skeins  of  rain  unravelling  in  the  blast  of  a  driv- 
ing storm,  I  was  insensibly  relieved.  I  have  al- 
ways been  peculiarly  sensitive  to  atmosphere, 
and  never  ventured  out  in  ill  weather,  even  in 
closed  carriages. 

"  I  will  send  a  note  when  I  have  breakfasted," 
I  said.  But  when  I  had  breakfasted  there  was 
a  curious  break  in  the  heavy  clouds,  that  showed 
a  deep  vista  of  intense  blue  just  veiled  by  an 
unconquered  drift,  and  by  noon  a  strong  sun 
poured  its  gold  over  all  the  wet  and  shining 
streets. 

As  I  drove  through  the  late  twilight  to  the 
house  where  I  was  bidden,  I  ceased  to  resent 
this  invasion  of  my  calm.  It  always  was  so 
with  me.  I  hated  the  thought  of  change ; 
once  undertaken,  it  had  its  pleasure.  My  friend 
was  awaiting  me  alone. 

"  You  are  our  only  guest,  save  the  poet," 
she  said,  herself  tossing  the  lace  drapery  from 
off  my  hair.  "  Oh,  I  am  glad  you  wore  white  !  " 
touching  with  dainty  finger  tips  the  mass  of 
snowy  crape.  "  Robert  is  coming  with  our 
friend,"  she  said,  presently.  Quick !  stand 
against  that  pomegranate  curtain.  O  you 
wilful  wretch  !  "  Her  husband  entered  with 


IN  SOLITUDE.  13$ 

their  guest.  Robert  Sard  is  a  handsome  man. 
So  handsome  that  he  has  no  time  for  aught 
else,  nor,  to  tell  the  truth,  has  she,  so  hard 
must  she  struggle,  poor  soul,  to  engross  that 
beauty  and  keep  at  bay  the  fluttering  competi- 
tors for  his  regard. 

But  I  never  saw  his  blue  and  gold,  and  rose 
and  snow,  shining  with  the  light  radiance  that 
might  endue  a  girlish  god,  though  my  eyes  had 
been  used  to  dwell  with  pleasure  on  those  won- 
drous tints  and  contours.  I  saw  only  the 
great  figure  beside  him  :  the  head,  shaggy  with 
large  waves  of  hair,  just  frosted ;  the  massive 
features,  grim  and  fine ;  the  strange,  deep  eyes 
into  which  I  looked  with  a  sudden  dread. 
I  had  never  seen  any  one  like  him.  Never! 
Never ! 

That  love  of  beauty  which  had  determined 
my  friend's  life  in  her  choice  of  a  husband  was 
shown  in  all  her  surroundings.  When  my  host 
led  me  in  to  the  room  where  we  were  to  dine, 
I  could  but  smile  with  pleasure.  All  my  life 
long  I  have  loved  color,  revelled  in  it,  been  al- 
most maddened  by  certain  hues.  I  have  not 
that  finer  instinct  which  puts  form  first.  The 
place  glowed  like  a  jewel :  the  pomegranate 
shades  dear  to  my  heart  deepened  to  russet  and 
faded  to  yellowing  rose,  and  were  outlined  by 


136  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

old  blues  and  burnished  sages ;  rare  woods  tor- 
tured into  odd  shapes  of  beauty ;  plush  hang- 
ings where  the  color  seemed  to  pulse  beneath 
a  silvery  frost,  dim  and  rich  as  the  bloom  on  a 
grape  ;  curious  vases,  bits  of  pottery,  and  in  the 
centre  of  all  a  round  table,  the  point  from  which 
all  seemed  to  radiate,  with  its  jewelled  china 
and  gold  plate,  its  plumes  and  clusters  of  strange 
flowers,  its  gorgeous  masses  of  tropical  fruits, 
and  heaped  sweetmeats  sparkling  in  tinted 
crystals  of  sugar.  I  had  seen  it  all  often  enough 
and  it  always  enriched  my  mood.  To-night 
the  room  seemed  too  full.  Or  was  it  that  Cal- 
thorpe's  presence  was  too  intense  ?  I  wanted  to 
be  farther  off  from  him,  in  a  larger,  quieter 
space. 

His  face  and  voice  disturbed  me.  They 
seemed  to  hold  some  force  which  would  nullify 
the  slow  work  of  many  years  in  me,  and  turn 
my  honest  effort  into  a  vain  beating  of  empty 
air.  I  was  afraid.  It  would  be  terrible  to 
learn  that  my  whole  life  was  cheapened  by  the 
discovery  of  a  false  foundation.  What  was  it 
that  made  me  feel  that  I  must  set  at  naught  all 
that  had  gone  before  ?  It  was  not  much  that 
he  said,  and  that  little  was  spoken  in  pleasant 
words,  salted  with  that  fine  humor  born  of  the 
educated  perception  of  congruities.  It  was  the 


IN  SOLITUDE.  137 

tone  and  the  look  that  accompanied  it  that 
shook  me.  There  was  infinite  distress  in  it  all ; 
unspeakable  pain,  yet  a  pain  better  worth  the 
bearing  than  all  the  sober  joys  my  life  had 
known.  Soon  this  sweet  anguish  urged  me  on 
to  speech,  and  it  seemed  that  my  mind  unfolded 
all  at  once,  as  a  century  plant  blooms,  and  I 
spoke  as  I  had  never  spoken  before.  They 
were  quiet,  those  good  friends  of  mine  and  a 
bit  proud,  I  think,  and  Calthorpe  watched  me 
and  watched  me. 

The  hours  passed,  not  with  the  fleetness  that 
marks  most  special  seasons  of  delight.  So  re- 
plete were  they  with  spiritual  incident,  so  full 
of  crowding  life,  so  brimmed  with  the  concen- 
trated development  of  years,  that  when  we 
rose  from  the  board  my  coming  there  seemed 
something  already  far  in  the  past. 

"  Your  carriage  waits,"  said  my  friend  ;  "  send 
it  away." 

"  No,  no,  I  must  go !  "  I  cried,  hurriedly, 
with  a  sense  of  escape. 

"  May  I  attend  you  to  your  door?"  Calthorpe 
asked,  bending  before  me. 

"  Yes,"  I  said. 

So  we  drove  together  through  the  city 
streets  between  the  shining  rows  of  lights  that 
seemed  to  meet  in  the  distance,  the  point  ever 


138  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

receding  before  us  as  we  rolled  along.  Did  I 
bid  him  enter  when  we  reached  my  home? 
What  need  ?  We  stood  within  my  sober  little 
study,  all  the  grave  lines  of  books  showing 
white  in  the  moonlight  that  poured  in  through 
the  broad  window,  vanquishing  the  dim  rosy 
glow  from  my  solitary  lamp.  We  stood  irreso- 
lute for  a  while,  speaking  only  dull  words,  void 
of  meaning.  My  hands  crushed  the  heavily 
fragrant  waxen  bells  of  the  hyacinth  at  my 
breast.  I  felt  it  rushing  upon  me — the  moment 
when  I  must  meet  his  eyes,  but  I  held  it  away 
from  me  while  I  could.  Strange  thrills  of  ex- 
quisite awe  shot  through  me.  All  the  old,  dis- 
regarded myths  were  taking  on  new  life  ;  all 
the  knowledge  my  feeble  intelligence  had  been 
gleaning  with  painful  care  for  years  was  blown 
like  chaff  before  the  blast  in  the  stormy  sense 
of  forces  newly  created.  Heaven  and  hell,  God 
and  Devil,  angel  and  seer,  good  and  evil — all 
these  hinted,  primitive  symbols  of  the  myste- 
ries of  a  Law  that  governs  these  mortals  who 
have  discerned  all  but  that — the  meaning  of  all 
swept  upon  me.  Then  I  lifted  my  eyes  to  that 
wonderful  face.  My  soul  cried  out  to  him,  and 
he  answered. 

Did  we  talk    until  the   stars    merged   their 
special  light  into  the  wide  splendor  of  dawn  ? 


IN  SOLITUDE.  139 

I  do  not  know.  Time  was  no  longer  then. 
Lonely !  Ah,  homely  little  word,  never  again. 
The  hoarded  thoughts  of  a  lifetime  rushed  to 
my  lips.  Oh,  and  with  them  those  ineffable  pos- 
sessions of  the  soul  which  transcend  thought ! 
At  last  I  was  I,  myself,  full,  expanded,  expressed. 
The  blinding  light  broke  in  upon  me.  I  saw 
what  had  been  and  would  be.  Phenomena  too 
were  clear  to  me.  I  knew,  that  as  the  world 
counts  meeting,  we  two  should  meet  no  more. 
What  did  it  matter?  These  bodies  are  acci- 
dents. Through  "  this  corpse  which  is  man  " 
we  had  discerned  each  other. 

There  was  one  moment,  I  remember,  when 
we  stood  so  close  together  that  the  soul  seemed 
to  escape  in  sighs  from  each  mortal  frame,  then 
he  was  gone ;  gone  from  the  sight  of  these 
fleshly  eyes  forever,  but  he,  himself,  is  always 
with  me. 

As  day  by  day  this  flimsy  tenement  of  clay 
grows  less  strong  to  hold  me,  we  enter  into 
more  complete  possession  of  each  other.  He 
still  walks  the  earth  and  sings  its  chosen  songs 
for  it.  Ah,  worshipping  world  !  The  songs, 
unsung  that  alone  express  him  are  what  I  hear. 
He  is  all  mine,  though  you  crown  him  and 
claim  him. 

That  night   I  knew  I  was  soon   to    escape 


140  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

from  the  body.  I  shut  myself  away  from  every 
one.  We  could  not  be  interrupted,  he  and  I. 
No  one  from  the  outer  world  sees  me  save  the 
faithful  servants  who  have  tended  me  for  many 
years.  They  weep  often  of  late,  as  they  look 
at  these  dwindling  features.  Ah — the  pen  has 
dropped  once  too  often.  I  will  write  again  to- 
morrow. 

*         *         *         *          *         *         * 

I  have  crawled  to  my  dead  husband's  old 
leather  chair.  I  have  gathered  some  of  his 
books  in  my  weak  arms  and  laid  them  on  it.  I 
can  sit  on  the  floor  and  hide  my  face  against 
them.  I  am  so  frightened,  so  frightened.  And 
so  solitary.  It  has  all  gone.  I  know  it  now.  I 
see.  He  is  nothing  to  me,  that  poet,  that  man 
who  explained  creation  to  me.  That  night 
which  seemed  to  make  all  clear  to  me  was  a 
delirium.  No,  it  was  the  revolt,  the  tumult  of 
forces  desperately  resisting  death  in  a  young 
frame.  I  had  begun  to  die  then.  There  was 
no  other  meaning  in  it.  None.  But  it  has 
destroyed  all  that  went  before.  I  cannot  get 
back  to  my  old  self.  I  do  not  know  why  I 
came  to  this  world.  I  do  not  know  where  I  am 
going.  And  it  is  so  soon  now.  I  am  afraid. 
And  so  desolate.  I  think  if  I  had  some  small, 
warm  animal  to  hold  in  my  arms  and  stroke  I 
could  bear  this  better, 


IN  SOLITUDE.  141 

He  broke  my  hold  on  the  dear,  familiar,  toil- 
ing, blessed  world — Calthorpe.  I  have  fallen 
from  that  world  of  dreams  to  which  he  lifted 
me.  That  was  fever.  Is  this  stupor  ?  Which 
was  right  ?  Which  is  true  ?  O,  what  an  empty 
world !  Never  mind,  I  do  not  care.  I  only 
want  breath — breath.  I  would  not  care  if  I 
could  breathe.  See,  I  can  still  beat  open  the 
book  on  which  my  cheek  rests — my  hand  is  not 
so  weak.  It  is  "  Pendennis,"  I  think.  But  I  can- 
not read — I  cannot  see  the  words.  They  were 
old  friends,  every  one — I  miss  them.  O,  for 
one  breath  !  It  is  all — I  ask — of  time — or  eterni- 
ty !  One  breath — more  ! 


EPILOGUE. 

MRS.  PERCY  had  finished  her  reading,  and  she 
and  her  companion  had  parted  very  silently 
and  gone  their  ways.  But  there  was  a  rustle 
and  stir  about  all  the  wide  hall.  The  snow 
had  ceased,  and  off  in  the  west  a  deep,  fervent 
rose  color  was  flushing  the  massed  clouds. 
Clearer  and  nearer  it  burned,  and  at  last  the 
mist  curtains  parted,  and  a  flood  of  ruddy 
sunlight  poured  over  all  the  white  winter 
world. 

"  Hurrah  !  "  shouted  Harry,  in  the  very  same 
tone  with  which  he  had  welcomed  fair  weather 
a  dozen  years  ago.  He  stood,  elate  and 
flushed,  on  the  steps,  cap  in  hand,  then  sud- 
denly softened  and  sobered  as  he  looked 
up  and  saw  a  little  figure  standing  on  the 
other  side  of  the  glass  door.  He  opened  it 
gently. 

"  Would  n't  you — would  n't  you  come  out 
and  try  the  slide  just  once  before  dinner?  "  he 
asked,  shyly. 

142 


EPILOGUE.  143 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  Are  the  others  com- 
ing?" 

"  Do  you  mind  coming  with  me  alone,  Eth- 
el ?  "  he  said,  so  soberly  that  she  blushed  and 
answered  hastily : 

"  Oh  no,  no  indeed!  " 

Now  not  since  they  were  children  together 
had  he  called  her  Ethel. 

In  a  little  while  she  appeared,  her  shy  face 
peeping  out  from  a  wicked  hood  in  rosy 
content. 

They  trotted  off  over  the  snow.  "You  see," 
said  Harry,  confidentially,  "  I  have  more  faith 
in  my  own  '  bob  '  than  in  all  their  new  tobog- 
gans, and  I  Ve  had  it  done  up  until  it 's  just  as 
fit !  And  now  if  you  don't  mind — there  's 
no  one  else  here — I  'm  going  to  take  you 
down  in  that.  You  need  n't  be  afraid ;  that 
thing  is  as  wise  as  a  horse,  and  answers  to  my 
hand  as  well." 

Ethel  was  very  much  afraid,  but  so  many 
conflicting  emotions  were  taking  possession  of 
that  gentle  little  heart  that  she  could  not  speak 
for  the  rout  of  them. 

Then  Harry  seated  her  carefully  on  his  "  bob," 
which  was  a  very  original  and  jaunty  tobog- 
gan, though  thus  ignominiously  named.  She 
trembled  a  little,  but  it  was  not  all  with  fear. 


144  TOLD  AT  TUXEDO. 

"  One,  two,  three,  and  away  !  "  cried  Harry, 
as  he  had  cried  on  the  top  of  the  hill  behind 
the  academy  of  his  youth,  and  away  they  went, 
with  a  dart  and  a  rush  down  the  long  slide, 
over  the  sparkling  snow,  sweeping  like  descend- 
ing swallows  to  the  end.  Ethel  sat  pink  and 
breathless,  looking  up  at  him  as  he  scrambled 
to  his  feet  and  shook  himself  like  a  young 
dog. 

"  We  came  down  safely,"  she  said,  with  rather 
a  tremulous  little  laugh. 

"You  were  n't  afraid  to  trust  yourself  to 
me  ?  "  said  Harry,  not  much  more  steadily. 

"  No,"  she  said,  so  softly  that  he  had  to 
stoop  his  curly  head  to  hear  her. 

"  They  call  that  a  long  slide  ;  it 's  idiotically, 
uselessly  short.  Ethel,  it  did  n't  take  us  but  a 
little  while  to  come  down,  but  upon  my  soul, 
I  think  if  you  'd  trust  yourself  to  me  for  a 
longer  trip — and  perhaps — one — more  danger- 
ous, you  know,  I  'd  take  as  good  care  you  came 
out  all  right — as  you  did  this  time.  I  can't  say 
what  I  feel.  Perhaps  if  I  could  I  would  n't 
be  even  as  half  way  worth  your  taking — as 
I  am  now." 

Little  Ethel  had  never  a  word  to  say,  but 
Harry  looked  under  the  cunning  hood  and  saw 
a  rainbow  of  promise  shining  for  him  through 


EPILOGUE. 


145 


the  mingled  tears  and  smiles  of  the  sweet  face. 
He  held  out  his  hand  to  her,  and  she  laid  her 
own  confidingly  in  it,  and  so  they  began  to 
climb  the  hill  together. 


UNIVERSITY  of  CAL1FUJ 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


Form  L-9— 20m 


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